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Abercromby’s Weather, 215. Academy of Sciences, National, Act of God, 46. Acting, psychology of, 99. Aerobioscope, a new, 197. Aerolites, orbits of, 198. Africa, Portuguese in, 193. African languages, 205. Agassiz Association, Massachusetts Assembly of, 311; New Jersey Assembly of, 286. Agnew, Cornelius R., death of, 195. Agricultural chemists, 311; Department, scientific work of, 147; station at Knoxville, 193; survey of the United States, 231 ; value of the Mackenzie re- gion, 231. Agriculture and late quaternary geology, 241. Alabama, Polytechnic Institute, 172. Alaska, ethnographic collection from, 198. Alaskan rivers, 311. Alcohol and fevers, 104. Alden’s Cyclopedia, 228. Aldis’s Algebra, 107. Algonkin metalsmiths, 186. Allen, F. H. An unusual auroral bow, 302. Allen, H. Crania of Carnivora, 71. Alloys, formation of, 99, 100. Aluminium production, 286, 302. American Association meeting, 228, 312. Ames, C. H. Wasp-stings, 24. Anderson’s Medical Nursing, 285. Anemometers, testing of, 313. Animals, calls of, 70, 109. Antarctic regions, 68. Anthropologist, the American, 95. Ants, interesting nests of, 286. Aphasia, 42. Architects, French, 46. Architecture in the South-west, 257. Argentine Republic, map of, 36; statistics, 313. Arkansas, 48. Arkansaw and Kansaw, 24. Arthur Kill Bridge, 313. Artificial arm and leg statistics, 240. Ashley’s Early History of the English Woolen Indus- try, 33. Ashmun, G.C. Worm in a hen’s egg, 97. eecclation of American Physicians, ‘'ransactions of the, 155. A Atkinson’s Study of Politics, 204. Atmospheric electricity, 296. Atomic weights, errors in, 189. Attention, morbid states of the, 130. Audubon monument, 159. Auroral bow, an unusual, 266, 289, 302. ‘Australian Association of Science, 311. B. Bacteria, thermal death-point of, 67. Bacteriology in medical schools, 5, 61, 123, 158. Bailey, E. H.S. Sense of taste, 145. Baird, Major Powell’s address in memory of, 25. Balfour’s Lectures on Bacteria, 84. Balkan Peninsula, people of, 40. Balloon, proposed vacuum, 260, 307. Ballou’s Under the Southern Cross, 54. ‘Bannatyne’s Republican Institutions in the United States, 53. Barometric areas of the Atlantic, 70. Barrett, F. N. Economy of food, 208. Bartlett, Commander, retiring of, 243. Basque nation, 294. pe ecpeler» J.M. Temperature of the Saco River, Battery, primary, magnesium in, 177; the Schan- scheifi, 168; storage, 104 ; improvement in, 284; in Brussels, 212 ; plates for, 154; tests of, 248; the Car- riére, 263; the DeBernado, 189; the Farbarky and Schenck, 168; the Gibson, 177; the Tudor, 307. Baur, G. Unusual dermal ossifications, 144. Beauchamp, W. M. Indian graves, 206; the snow- snake, 36, 71, 157. Beer, use of, in the United States, 185. peulela’s Manual Training and the Public School, Bell, A. Graham, 252. Bell, A.M. Volapiik, 39. Bérillon’s Pedagogy, 216. Bessels, Emil, 219; death of, 169. Bicycle railway, 287. 186, 195. De BOO Om Me Xeh Bile, function of, 272. Binet and Féré’s Animal Magnetism, 82. Birds, flight of, 9, 58. Bishop’s Exact Phonography, 214. Black’s Periosteum and Peridental Membrane, 216. Blackwell’s German Prefixes, 204. Blizzard, the March, 287, 295; deaths in, due to as- phyxia, 310. Blonde and brunette, 194, 230. Blood changes, 117; corpuscles, educating white, 237. Bloxam’s Chemistry, 94. Boas, F. Calls for domestic animals, 109; explora- tions in Canada, 64; psychophysic methods, 119; vermin-eaters, 109. Boats, landing Eskimo, 134. Bonar’s Letters of David Ricardo, 156. Books, disinfection of, 226; published in 1887, 36. Boyer, E. H. The common schools, 289. Bradley’s Atlas of the World, 285. Braidwood, T. W. Thomas Braidwood, 12. Brake, an improved Prony, 212. Breath, the human, 141. Buel, R. H. Conspiracy of silence, 12. Buffaloes for Washington Zodlogical Garden, 240. Butler, A. W. The scientific swindler, 119. Cc. Canada, explorations in, 64; Royal Society of, 278. Canal, Nicaragua, 286 ; Perekop, 288 ; Suez, tonnage through, 289. Cancer, bacillus of, 44. Capitol, marble terrace for the, 183. Carnivora, crania of, 71. Carpet-beating in Paris, 264. Carr’s Missouri, 274. Carr’s Results in Pure Mathematics, 251. Cascade Range, geology of, 122. Case School of Applied Science, 31. Cat phenomena, 96. Cerebration, unconscious, 131. Chamberlain, A. F. Vermin-eaters, 109. Chamberlain’s Catalogue of Canadian Birds, 142, 182. Chambers’s Encyclopedia, 142. Chautauqua College, 252. Chemical laboratory of the Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 126. Cheyenne, 24. Children, development of, 21, 50; growth of, 28. Cholera epidemic in Japan, 306; infantum, 213. Christmas customs, 218; in Newfoundland, 93. Church’s Mechanics of Materials, 192. Cincinnati natural history lectures, 8. Clayton, H. H. An unusual auroral bow, 289; rain- fall on the Plains, 229; weather-predicting, 22, 56. Climatology, dictionary of, 169. Clodd’s Story of Creation, 142. Coast and Geodetic Survey, field force of, 301; trans- fer of, to the navy, 252. Cod from Iceland, 46. Coffee, adulteration of, in Canada, 169. Color associations, 12; blindness. 39, 57. Comet seen April 12, 252. Composite portraits of the insane, 252. Conferences between business-men and working- men, 171. Conn, H. W. Bacteriology in medical schools, 123, 158; germ theory in education, 5; significance of variety and species, 253. Connecticut State Board of Health Report, 238. Consciousness, ante-chamber of, 123. Conspiracy of silence, 12, 37. : Consumption and lung-expansion, 189; portagious- ness of, 201. Contagion in courts, 287. Copper, lead, and zinc, 211. Copyright Association, 46; international, 159, 205, 281, 265, 280. Corundum exhibited by G. F. Kunz, 289. Coues, E. Psychics, 86. i Cox, ©. F. Dr. Edward Tyson and the doctrine of descent, 169. Criminal types, 217. Criminals, method of identifying, 147. Croton water, 310. Cure, the Swedish movement, 27. Current-registering instrument, 284. Curtis, G. E. Rainfall on the Plains, 194. Cutter’s Anatomy, 191. Cyprus Exploration Fund, 157. D. Davidson, Dr. Thomas, memorial to, 157. Davis’s Text-Book of Biology, 284. Dawson, G.M. Geological observations of the Yukon expedition, 185. Dawson’s Geological History of Plants, 203. Day’s Mineral Resources of the United States, 105. Death-penalty, 63, 217. DeBary, Anton, death of, 85. DeBary’s Lectures on Bacteria, 45. Descent, Dr. Edward Tyson and the doctrine of, 169. Dessoir’s Bibliographie des Hypnotismus, 300. Diamonds in meteorites, 118. ? Dictionary of Indian languages, 236. Diphtheria carried by turkeys, 226; classification of, 108; in New York, 225. Dixwell, J. Scarlet-fever, 194, Doctors advertising, 135. Dog, function of the cerebrum in, 200. Dolbear, A. E. Globular lightning, 38; the Reis tel- ephone, 37. Dolbear’s Art of Projection, 133. Dorsey, J. O. Arkansaw and Kansaw, 24; Chey- enne, 24. Drawing, teaching of, 30. Drift north of Lake Ontario, 138. Drunkenness as a disease, 307. Dulles’s Accidents and Emergencies, 239. Dynamite guns, 153. Dynamo, the Eickemeyer, 212; the Mordey alternat- ing-current, 284; and steam turbine, 247. Dynamos, designing of, 296. E. Earth, density of the, 116. Earthquake, report on the Charleston, 171; report on the Sonora, 159, 162; submarine, 205. Economic Association, 9; paradoxes, 172. Editors needed in Washington, 183. Education, commercial, 314; report of commissioner of, 132;.report of the New York department of, 63. Educational Association, 70. : Edwards’s Butterflies of North America, 54, 277. Electric currents, heating effect of, 288; distribu- tion, 167, 200; energy from carbon, 188; light con- vention, 111; measuring-instruments, 237 ; meter, 212; motors, 168; phenomena provoked by radia- tion, 201; radiograph, 212; transformers, 141, 155. Electricity, chemical generators of, 262; directly from heat, 68; for railroad-work, 200. Electro-motor, a new, 238. Electro-motors, 92; alternating-current, 273. . Elliott, E. B., death of, 261. Emin Pacha, news from, 157. Emmons’s Geology and Mining Industry of Leadville, Colorado, 18. Energy, hypothesis of potential, 196. Eozoon Canadense, 146. Eskimo and Indian, 11; ring-finger, 24. Ethnographie, Archiy fiir, 107. Ethnology, appropriations for Bureau of, 265. Evolution in civilized man, 111, 112. Exhibition, the Three Americas, 303. Explosive gases and incandescent lamps, 284. FE. Farini and Chayanne, 17. Farm-labor statistics, 279. i Farnsworth, P. J. Classification of diphtheria, 108, Fats, examining, 102. Field-parties of the national surveys, 228. Fish Commission, re-organization of, 237; ‘work of, on the Pacific, 247; propagation, 235. Fish-cultural station in Missouri, 301. Fisheries of Norway, 312. Floods in New South Wales, 108. Fluorine, isolation of, 19. Foerste, A. F. Sections of fossils, 22. Fog during May, 270. Folk-Lore Society, 20; journal of, 240. Food, economy of, 208, 232. Foot-and-mouth disease, 44. Forbes’s Lectures on Electricity, 156. Forestry of Michigan, 35. Forests, influence of, upon climate of Australia, 222, Fossil animal-tracks in Florida, 133. Fossils, sections of, 22, 50. Fungi, edible, 97. Wore ole] G. Gallaudet’s Life of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 106. Galloway’s Principles of Chemistry, 274. Galvanometer, expansion, 273. Galvanometers, suspensions for, 227. Gannett, H. Do forests influence rainfall? 3; rain- fall on the Plains, 99. Garbage, cremation of, 190, 308. Garrett, Andrew, death of, 35. Gas, illuminating, 226. Gas-lamp, an improved, 301. Geikie’s Geography of the British Isles, 250. Geographic Society, address of president of, 148. _ Geographical names, 45; society in Peru, 240; in Washington, 54. Geological Congress, 278, 311; survey of Pennsylva- nia, 1886, 45. Geometrical teaching in England, 36. Gerland’s Beitrige zur Geophysik, 203. Gibson’s Earth’s Crust, 105; Great Waterfalls, 105. Gilbert, C. H. Scientific swindler, 144. Gilman’s Plea for the ‘!raining of the Hand, 33. Goff, E.S. Expansion of wood, 86. Goode’s American Fishes, 265. Goodridge, J. C.,Jr. The earth’s rotation as affect- ing railway-trains, 62. Gow’s School Classics, 275. Gray, Asa, 51; bequest of, 266; illness of, 46; memo- rial meeting in Washington, 181. Gray, Thomas, 133. Greely, A. W. Rainfall on the Plains, 240. E Greenland, Danish expeditions to, 193; explorations in, 259. Gypsy-lore society, 286. H. Hailmann’s Primary Methods, 33. Hair-washes, 310. Hall, A. Conspiracy of silence, 37. Hallock, W. Mercury distillation, 314. Halos round the moon, 283. Hampson, Thomas, death of, 205. Handwriting, psychology of, 44. Harbor entrances, 76. Harlow, W. B. Color-blindness, 57. Harris, W. T. Wasp-stings, 62. Hartleben’s atlas, 144. Hayden, E. Globular lightning, 110. Hayden, Ferdinand Vandeyveer, 1. Hayden Memorial Fund, 240. Haynes, H. W._ Indian wrist-guards, 121. Hazen, H. A. Rainfall on the Plains, 218; weather- predictions, 49. Head-growth, 271. Heads, dried, among the Jivaros, 134. Health Association, sixteenth meeting of, 216. Heebner’s Pharmacy and Chemistry, 205. Hessian-fly, 252. Hewitt, J. N. B. Eskimo and Indian, 11; the snow- snake, 46, 109. Hilgard, E. W. geology, 241. Hill, A.J. Blonde and brunette, 230. Hill, R. T. Pronunciation of ‘ Arkansas,’ 48; Trinity formation of the South-west, 21. Hill’s Lessons in Geometry, 276. Hill's Social Influence of Christianity, 310. Holden, E. 8. Color associations, 12; human beings as pack-animals, 278. Holland’s The Urine, 168. Howe, H. A. Star of Bethlehem, 86. Hubbard, G. G., address of, before the Geographic Society, 148. Hughes’s Geography for Schools, 215. Human beings as pack-animals, 242, 278, 290; prog- ress, course of, 220. Hyatt on values in classification, 41. Hybrid diseases, 57. Hydrographic Office, 27. Hypnotic, a new, 272. Hypnotism, 66; notes on, 298. Hyslop, J. H. Binocular vision, 59, 71; experiments in vision, 217. Agriculture and late quaternary 1 Ice, effect of pressure on, 134. Ideas, genealogy of, 278. Illusions of sight and motion, 178. India to China, trade route from, 193. Indian graves, 206; relics, 205; tribes, original homes of, 139. Indiana Academy of Sciences, 20, 205. Indians, Siana, 187. Induction, co-efficients of, 238. Induction-coil currents, 105. Industrial Education Association Manual in Domes- tic Science, 192. Infection by rags, 102. Inge’s Society in Rome under the Casars, 250. Ingram’s History of Political Economy, 204. Insanity and race, 272. Insects, injurious, 187; mental powers of, 199. Instruments, new method of reading reflecting, 238. International exchanges, 286. Interstate commerce control, 127. Investing, Art of, 133. Irving, Roland D., funeral of, 288. Island, newly discovered, in the Pacific, 36. J. Jackson, R. T. Microscopical examination of ani- mal life, 930. Jackson medals, 110. Jacobson, A. Jacobson’s Higher Ground, 55. INDEX. James, J. F. Sections of fossils, 50. James’s Long White Mountain, 168. Jastrow, J. physic methods, 145. Jelly-fish, poisonous, 146. Jennings’s Chronological Tables, 275, Jewels and precious stones, 260. Joking, psychology of, 18. Jones’s Negro Myths, 276. Jugglery, Indian, 269. K. Keller, Helen, 89, 160. Kellicott, D.S. An unusual auroral bow, 266. Kilima Ndjaro, H. Meyer’s ascent of, 8. Kirkup’s An Inquiry into Socialism, 19. Klemm’s Chips from a Teacher’s Workshop, 193. Kneeland’s Volcanoes and Earthquakes, 190. Kongo, commission to visit the, 265; meaning of, 70. Kunz, G. F. A pseudo-meteorite, 119; diamonds in meteorites, 118. L. Labor statistics, 135. Laboratories, electrical, in Paris, 154. Laboratory, Marine Biological, 20, 305. Labrador, 77. Land in severalty for Indians, 231. Lands, reclamation of arid, 236, 265. Lang, H. Transcontinental railroads, 73. Langley’s The New Astronomy, 143. Language Association, 13; the universal, 184. Languages, study of, 12. Lard, adulteration of, 186. Leach, 8.8. Mississippi problem, 87. Lead in water, 226. LeConte, John. Drops of water, 74. LeConte, Joseph. Experiments in vision, 252; monocular vision, 119; significance of sex, 229. LeConte’s Evolution, 239. Leland’s Practical Education, 240. Leper invasion, 272. Leprosy, contagiousness of, 67; in America, 189. Letters, legibility of, 297. Lichty, D. Tree temperatures, 62. Light at Goat Island, 287; the Seel incandescent electric, 263. Lighting, windmills for electric, 308. Lightning, globular, 38, 62, 110, 122. Lights, electric, and insurance, 189; efficiency of, 188; for stations, 226; high candle-power, 177; in- candescent, with alternating and direct currents, 296; intensity of, 211: power for, 93. Linderfelt’s Volapuk, 69. Linnzan Society centennial, 277. Lizard, is there a venomous? 21, 50. Lock’s Trigonometry, 276. Locomotive-building, rapid, 313. Lovering, Professor, resignation of, 255. Lucas, F. A. Flight of birds, 58. M. McAnally’s Irish Wonders, 203. MacCord’s Hints for Draughtsmen, 228. McDonough, T. Globular lightning, 62. MecMaster’s Benjamin Franklin, 94. McMillan, R. Wasp-stings, 122. Magnetic declination records, 51. Magnetization of iron and temperature, 284. Magnus’s Education in Bavaria, 204. Malaria, 139. Mantegazza’s Die Ekstasen des Menschen, 300. Manual training, 1; in Washington, 87, 207, 210, 240, 267, 302; in the West, 171; Lord Salisbury on, 303. Maps, United States Geological Survey, 228. Martin’s Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind, 132. Marvin, C. F. Self-recording rain-gauge, 97. Mason, O. T. Dried heads among the Jivaros, 134; genealogy of ideas, 278; human beings as pack- animals, 242, 290; ratio between men and women, 108. Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Eigh- teenth Report of, 191. Mather, F.G. Edible fungi, 97. Medical colleges in the United States, 103; gradu- ates, the future of, 104; Museum, catalogue of Army, 133; profession, wear and tear of, 263; schools, bacteriology in, 5, 61, 123, 158; students, number of, 249. Medicine, State, 248. Memory-test, 271. Men and women, ratio between, 108. Mercier’s Nervous System and the Mind, 202. Mercury distillation, 314. Merrill, G. P. The Montville serpentine, 302. Merriman’s Roofs and Bridges, 132. Metals in magnetic fields, 238. Meteorite, a pseudo, 119; Fayette County, 266; from Texas, 55. Meteorological Society of England, 85. Meter, a direction-current, 281. Mexican tribes, 311. Meyer’s Theories of Chemistry, 132. Michigan State Board of Health Keport, 311. Microscopes, 23, 120. Microscopical examination of animal life, 230; ob- jectives, 157. Milk, 309. Mills, 1. W. Physiological reversion, 79. Mind, a new science of, 256. Mine development in Ontario, 240. Mineral resources of Canada, 287. Mineralogical branch of the New York Academy, 286; Club in New York, 193, 312. A new science of mind, 256; psycho- [Jan.-JUNE, 1888 Minerals for Cincinnati Exposition, 277. Mining road, electric, at Lykens, 296. Minnesota Indians, bistory of, 313. Minot, C. 8. Microscopes, 23. Mississippi problem, 87; surplus water of, 251. Monaco, explorations of Prince of, 252, 277. Monteith’s Familiar Animals, 142. Morgan, A. Act of God, 46; interstate commerce control, 127. Morphine habit in Paris, 226. Morris, C. Reflex speech, 290. Mounds, Ohio, 254, 314; serpent, 196. Mountain-building, 280. Misller’s Science of Thought, 299. Muir and Carnegie’s Practical Chemistry, 54. Muir and Slater’s Elementary Chemistry, 54. Murdoch, J. Eskimo ring-finger, 24. Museum, National, 267 ; fire-proof building for the, 252, 306. Muter’s Analytical Chemistry, 168. Mythology and American myths, 244. Myths, Irish, 101. N. Names, science of, 291. Naturalists, society of, 6. Newberry, J. 8., award of medal to, 95. Newberry, J.S. Flight of birds, 9. Newcomb, Prof. Simon, illness of, 313. New Jersey Dairy Commissioner’s Report, 264. New Jersey State Board of Health Report, 238. New York Academy of Sciences, 111. New York City, geological map of, 107. New Zealand letter, 223. Nichols, E. L. Sense of taste, 145. Nixon’s Geometry, 276. Noyes, W. Composite portraits of the insane, 252. Nuttall’s Standard Dictionary, 69. 0. Obangi, the, 17; exploration of the, 277. Ocean-currents, 206. Oil to calm the waves, 183, 312. Oil-springs in the Pacific, 116. Oldberg and Long’s Chemistry, 215. Oleomargarine in Massachusetts, 249. Ontario, history of Lake, 49. Orbis Pictus of John Ames Comenius, 132. O’Reilly’s Boxing and Manly Sport, 285. Ossifications, unusual dermal, 144. Osteological notes, 218. Oxygen, atomic weight of, 144. Lee Parasite of the beaver, 197. Parker, H. W. Cat phenomena, 96. Parkes’s Unfinished Worlds, 45. Pasteur, 226. Paton’s Down the Islands, 54. Patton’s Natural Resources of the United States, 84. Peabody Museum report, 107. Peabody’s Harvard Reminiscences, 93. Pellew’s Woman and the Commonwealth, 95. Penna, D. S. F., death of, 108. Pennsylvania agricultural station, 312; Geological Sarvey report, 276. Petroleum-engine, 247. Philadelphia pedagogical library, 84. Phonograph, Edison’s, 247. Phonographs, 246. Physics at Harvard, 313; and chemistry, journal for the teaching of, 20. Physiological Association, 8. Pictographs, Ojibwa, 282. Plane-table sheets, distortion in, 166. Play-instinct, 270. Plumb-line deflections, 35. Poison, deaths from, 310. Polarization of platinum plates, 296, Political Science Quarterly, 9. Polytechnic Institute, 269. Pond, E. J. Drops of water, 38. Population drifting to cities in Australia, 303. Post, H. D. Influence of forests upon rainfall and Pottery for National Museum, 288. Powell, J. W. The course of human progress, 220. Powell on evolution in civilized man, 111, 112. Prescott’s Organic Analysis, 53, Prestwich’s Geology, 181. Preyer’s Mind of the Child, 216. Princeton’s new president, 75. Printing, dilatory governmbént, 147. Probabilities, 153. Probe, electrical bullet, 103. Psychic disturbances in Russia, 178. Psychical Research, Proceedings of American Socl- ety for, 118. Psychics, 86. Psychology, American Journal of, 131, 288; experi- mental, at Bonn, 169; in France, 207. Psychophysic methods, 119, 145.. Q. Queen & Co.'s importation of apparatus, 312. R. Raft, logs of the great, 111, 288. Railway in central Asia, 54, 288; electric, in Alle- gheny City, 248; Short series, 284; Sprague, 68; street, in Baltimore, 227. 1888, JAN—JUNE. | Railways in South America, 20; transcontinental, 73; electric, 141; in Great Britain, 176. Railway-trains and the earth’s rotation, 62,110. _ Rainfall as influenced by forests, 3,50; on the Plains, 99, 101, 158, 194, 218, 229, 240. Rain-gauge, self-recording, 97. Ration, a new military, 299. Re-action time for temperature, 250. Reed’s Photography applied to Surveying, 190. Reformatory, annual report of the New York, 147. Retina, visual units in the, 18. Reversion, physiological, 79. Rhode Island geology, 99; survey of, 169. Richter’s Inorganic Chemistry, 94. Ricketts and Russell’s Skeleton Notes upon Inor- ganic Chemistry, 215. Rio Déce in Brazil, 133. Robinson’s Principles of Morality, 204. Rocks, cabinets of typical American, 282. Roofs as health-resorts, 207, 214. Roumania, Meterological Institute of, 277. Royal Society election, 312; foreign members of, 301. Rubies, artificial, 193. s. Sachs’s Physiology of Plants, 190. Safford, F. Wasp-stings, 38. St. Bris’ The Name of America, 264. St. Petersburg letter, 209. Sallis’s Hypnotism. 216. Salmon ova shipped to Argentine Republic, 288. Salomons’s Management of Accumulators, 70. Sauveur College of Languages, 252. Scarlet-fever epidemic at Heudon, 67; in London, 36; report, 2, 14, 29, 117, 179, 194. Scheele, Charles William, monument to, 36. School statistics in the United States, 311. Schoolhouses, sanitary supervision of, 51. Schools, efficiency of engineering, 292; New York, 248, 255, 267, 278, 279; science-teaching in, 13, 75; the common, 289. School-work exhibition, 147. Sciences, the endowment of the new, 39. Scientific meetings, eating and smoking at, 13. Sea, peculiar colorings of, 251. Seaman, W. H. Microscopes, 120. Sea-sickness, 272. Seidel’s Industrial Instruction, 33. Selwyn, A. R.C. Eozoon Canadense, 146. Sergi’s Ta Psychologie Physiologique, 34. Serpentine, specimens of, 282; the Montville, 302. Sewage, electrical treatment of, 141. Seward, T. F. New York schools, 278. Sex, significance of, 229; and consumption, 52. Shad-hatching, 246. Shaler, N.S. Mountain-building, 280. Sheep, tape-worm among, 137, 261. Shufeldt, R. W. New text-book on zoélogy, 58. Siulkworms, breeding wild, 35. Silver, remonetization of, 286. Skating, prehistoric, 33. Slade, D. D. Osteological notes, 218. Slang dictionary, 286. Slater’s Sewage Treatment, 155. Smith, Chauncey, on education, 287. Smith, T. Germ theory in education, 61. Smith’s Algebra, 191. Smokers’ vertigo, 272. Snow, F. H. Rainfall on the Plains, 158; venomous lizard, 50. INDEX. Snow-snake, 36, 46, 71, 109, 157. Solids, flow of, 152. Spain, prehistoric researches in, 32. Spectrum analysis theory, 224; photography and the spectrum of carbon, 198. Speech, reflex, 249, 290. Spencer, J. W. History of Lake Ontario, 49. Sprague, C. HE. Volapiik, 182. Sprague’s Hand-Book of Volapik, 69. Squier and Davis’s Ancient Monuments, 95. Stanley, expedition of, 67; fate of, 301; movements of, 95; news from, 219, 243. Star of Bethlehem, 86. Stars, scintillations of, 277. Steele’s Fourteen Weeks in Zoédlogy, 58; Popular Physics, 274. Stephen Island, natives of, 36. Stevens, W. LeC. Disparate vision, 241; the scien- tific swindler, 86. Stewart and Gee’s Physics for Schools, 142. Stieler’s Hand-Atlas, 251. Stirling’s Physiology, 205. Stockley, W. F., 218. Stone, G. H. Microscopical objectives, 157. Sturtevant, E. L. Vermin-eaters, 134. Sugar consistencies, 101. Swedenborg’s The Soul, or Rational Psychology, 106. Swindler, the scientific, 86, 119, 144. T. Tanner’s Memoranda on Poisons, 228. Target-shooting, 138. Taste, sense of, 145. Teeth, implanting of, 133. Telegraph-receiver, an ancient, 301. Telepathic theory, suggestion for the, 200. Telephone, the Reis, 37; lines, long-distance, 262; transmitter, the water-jet, 273. remperatune of the Saco River, 170; re-action time or, 17. Texas Geological Survey, 228. Thermometer, new form of, 107. Thomas, C. Ohio mounds, 254, 314; Squier and Da- vis’s Ancient Monuments, 95. Tibet and Nepaul, 91. Trance, alcoholic, 298. Transvaal, 17. Tree temperatures, 62. Trelease, W. Hybrid diseases, 57. Trinity formation of the South-west, 21. Trowbridge, W. P. Flight of birds, 10. Tuberculosis, bovine, 104. Turkeys, roup among, 302. Typhoid bacillus, 249; destroyed by boiling water, 310; infection, 140; inoculation, 226. Tyson, Dr. Edward, and the doctrine of descent, 169. 105 Underwood’s Native Ferns, 274. University, a proposed American, 267. Vv. Vaccination statistics, 117. Vacuum, conductivity of, 308. Vancouver Island, 105. Van Dyck, F. C. Floating drops, 86; globular light- ning, 110. [ Vor. XI. Van Dyke’s Literary Piracy, 94. Variety and species, significance of, 253. Vermin-eaters, 109, 134. Vertebrate fauna of the Puerco series, 198. Vescelius-Sheldon’s Yankee Girls in Zulu Land, 203. Vision, experiments in, 59, 71, 119, 217, 241, 252. Visual area, 250. Volapiik, 39, 182. Ww. Walker’s Political Economy, 69. Ward, H. L. Is there a venomous lizard? 21. Ward & Howell. Fayette County meteorite, 266; meteorite from Texas, 55. Warner’s The Children, 45. Washington scientific societies, 267. Washington’s letters, 74. Wasp-stings, 24, 38, 50, 62, 122, 242. Watches, magnetization of, 308. Water, drops of, 38, 62,74, 86; for Vienna, 226. Water-spouts, 150; of April, 247. Waters’s Digest of Fawcett’s Political Economy, 106. Weather Bureau, control of, 291; predictions, 22, 49, 56, 71, 267; prognostications, 280. Welding, electrical, 273. Welle, exploration of the, 234; source of the, 182. West’s Childhood, 106. Wey’s Training of Criminals, 276. What Shall We Talk about? 107. Wheat cultivation, 305; supply of England, 85. White Mountains, refuge-hut in, 219. ni teie European Schools of History and Politics, Wilde’s Ancient Legends of Ireland, 227. Wilder, W. L. Wasp-stings, 242. Willis, B. Geology of the Cascade Range, 122. Will-power, 65. Wirick, C. M. Drops of water, 62. Wood, G.G. Washington’s letters, 74. Wood-expansion, 86. Woodite, 312. Woodward’s The Manual-Training School, 33. Wooster, L. C. Jackson medals, 110. Word-deafness, 250. World-English, 286. Worm in a hen’s egg, 97, 108. Worthen, A. H., death of, 240. Wounds, grafts on, 140; of the abdomen, 299. Wright, Carroll D., on labor statistics, 135. Wright, R. R. Worm in a hen’s egg, 108. Wrist-guards, Indian, 121. Wyckoff, William C., death of, 219. Y. Hollow fever, 283; in Florida, 283; inoculation, 207, 1. Yellowstone National Park, 255. Yeo’s Physiology, 204. Yukon expedition, 1887, 184; geological observations of the, 185. Z. Zanzibar, 17. Zoological garden in Boston, 87, 183; in Washington, 27, 205; station at Ostend, 288. Zuni mythology and religion, 136. Audubon monument O c 5 Case School of Applied Science (2 figs.) Chemical laboratory of the Alabama Polytechnic Iastitute (2 figs.) Composite portraits of the insane (2 figs.) Electro-motors, alternating-current (2 figs.) . Greenland, sketch-map of west coast of . G Keller, Helen 5 6 : : a A Kilima Ndjaro, sketch-map of the 5 4 5 Labrador (2 figs.) . . 5 A 6 Meteorite, Fayette County 5 o Meter, direction-current . . G 0 Obangi-Welle, map showing basin of the 5 Osteological notes (4 figs.) 5 5 Plane-table sheets, distortion in 5 ° Pressure on ice, effect of ° Rainfall at Lawrence, Kan., 1868-87 . . Fy Rain-gauge, relf-recording 5 3 ° LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE PAGE O 5 Q 159 Rubies, artificial (2 figs.) . 5 b . . Q - . 194 dj 32 Saco River, temperature of O a 5 5 é o O 170 3 126 School of Mechanic Arts, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, plan of work- 3 o 253 shops at : J 5 6 . . : . 173 4 | 92 Snow-snake . 0 + 9 O 2 : : ° : 37 6 : . 259 Sprague street-car electric motor fs . 0 6 68 a 5 160 Squier and Davis’s Ancient Monuments 5 } O 6 4 96 8 Vision, experiments in (9 figs.) ° 6 0 : 59, 60, 72, 217, 241 5 Ge Yteh cit) Water-spouts off the Atlantic coast . z 6 O 5 o 151 5 266 a 281 2 5 234 5 . 218 Case School of Applied Science . O O 5 7 opposite 31 . ° ° 166 Ethnological map of south-eastern Europe . o opposite 40 5 6 134 State Chemical Laboratory, Auburn, Ala. opposite 126 O O . 158 Yellowstone Park, map of . 0 e 9 o opposite 255 98 Yukon River, map of the upper opposite 184 Page 57, col. 1, 21st line from bottom, for ‘ thallophytes’ read ‘ protophytes.’ ‘© 1, 25th line from top, for ‘Herndon’ read ‘Heudon,’ as also 7 67, throughout the paragraph. “cc ERRATA. Page 96, col. 1, last line, for ‘108’ read ‘ 118.’ “ 119, “* 1, 5th line from bottom, for ‘ homogeneous’ read ‘homonymous,’ for ‘image’ read ‘ images,’ and for ‘ it’ read ‘ they.’ 69, “* 2, 27th line from bottom, for ‘$2’ read ‘ $1.’ s] ted } tiie Hie ei ee he SIxTH YEAR. NEW YORK, JANUARY 6, 1888. _Vot. XI. No: 257. Copyright, 1888, by THE SCIENCE COMPANY. Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Olass Mail-Matter. Editorial : ! ; : : . 1. | Notes and News ; igre Manual-Training Symposium in the Century. ; Letters to the Editor. 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Orders by mail receive careful and prompt attention. BROADWAY AND ELEVENTH ST,, NEW YORK. NEW MAGAZINE—THE SWISS Devoted to spreading a love of natureamong the people. Edited (¢ ROSS by HarRLaN H. BALLARD, President of the Agassiz Asso- ciation, and succeeding St. Nichol s as the official maga- zine of that body. $1.50 ayear. Sample copy 10cents, or25 cents for trial subscription for 3 months. N.D. C. HODGES, PUBLISHER, Mention this magazine 47 Lafayette Place, New York. ' SCIENCE AN ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL PUBLISHED WEEKLY. Véreté sans peur. NEW YORK: THE SCIENCE COMPANY. FRIDAY, JANUARY 6, 1888. THE CENTURY MAGAZINE has done an excellent thing in print- ing two diverse views of manual training side by side in its January issue. The expression of the two views is typical of the discussions now so prominent on this subject, and illustrates excellently why the movement in favor of manual training is so strong, and why the oppo- sition to it is so weak. Superintendent MacAlister of Philadelphia states succinctly just what is being done in that city in the line of man- ual training. This summary is clear and comprehensive; his own approval of it, based on experience, is unqualified ; and he tells us that manual training has won the confidence of the community. Superintendent Dutton of New Haven follows with a brief state- ment of the work in his city, and states that “the effect of these several forms of industrial effort upon teaching generally is good.” Both of these gentlemen deal with facts with which they are per- fectly familiar, and their fayorable judgment upon manual training, while unqualified, is carefully and thoughtfully expressed. The gentleman who opposes manual training is Superintendent Marble of Worcester, Mass. His argument, if such it can be called, is an hysterical juggling, with more or less crude theories, and not a single fact is cited throughout his paper. An approach to a fact is the statement that a phase of manual training was tried fifty years ago, and proved a dead failure. This, however, is not true; nor, if it were, would it prove what Mr. Marble thinks it does. Manual training, as now comprehended and expounded, is not more than a dozen years old at most, and the most cursory knowledge of educa- tional history should have acquainted Mr. Marble with this fact. The same writer talks about “the protestations of those self-con- stituted philanthropists,” “the overthrow or subversion of the pub- lic school,” “ that virile quality of thought and mental power which it is the province of education to beget,” “the materialistic tendency of manual training,” and so on, and succeeds in demonstrating only that he is in absolute ignorance of what manual training is, and of what it is intended to accomplish. When we read a paper such as this, coming from a professed educator, it is the more easy to un- derstand and to condone the crude speculations and outrageous theories concerning education that so often emanate from persons in no way connected with the school system of the country. FERDINAND VANDEVEER HAYDEN. PROF. FERDINAND VANDEVEER HAYDEN, M.D., Ph.D., LL.D., who died in Philadelphia on the morning of Dec. 22, was born in Westfield, Mass., Sept. 7, 1829. Early in life he went to Ohio. In 1850 he was graduated from Oberlin College, and soon afterward read medicine at Albany, N.Y., receiving his degree from the Al- bany Medical College in 1853. He did not begin the practice of medicine, but in the spring of the year of his graduation was sent by Prof. James Hall of Albany, with Mr. F. B. Meek, to visit the Bad Lands of White River, to make collections of the cretaceous and tertiary fossils of that region. This was the beginning of his explorations of the West, which continued with little interruption for more than thirty years. In the spring of 1854, Dr. Hayden returned to the Upper Mis- souri region, and spent two years in exploring it, mainly at his own expense, although he was aided a portion of the time by gentlemen connected with the American Fur Company. During these two years he traversed the Missouri River to Fort Benton, and the Yellowstone to the mouth of the Big Horn River, and explored considerable portions of the Bad Lands of White River and other districts not immediately bordering upon the Missouri. The large collections of fossils he made, were given partly to the Academy of Sciences in St. Louis, and partly to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. As one of the members of the Geological Survey has recently said, these collections furnished the data for profitable scientific in- vestigation ; and the researches then begun mark the commence- ment of the epoch of true geologic investigation of our Great West. These collections attracted the attention of the officers of the Smithsonian Institution; and in February, 1856, Dr. Hayden was employed by Lieut. G. K. Warren, of the United States Topo- graphical Engineers, to make a report upon the region he had ex- plored ; so that the results of his labors during the three previous years were utilized by the government. This report was made in March of the same year, and in May following he was appointed geologist on the staff of Lieutenant Warren, who was then engaged in making a reconnaissance of the North-west. He continued in this position until 1859, when he was appointed naturalist and sur- geon to the expedition for the exploration of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, by Capt. William F. Raynolds of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army, with whom he remained until 1862. The results of his work while with Lieutenant Warren were published in a preliminary report of the War Department, and in several articles in the ‘Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia for the Years 1857 and 1858,’ and more fully in a memoir on the geology and natural history of the Upper Missouri, published in the ‘ Transactions of the American Philosoph- ical Society,’ Philadelphia, 1862. This paper also included chap- ters on the mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes, and recent mollusca of the region in which his geological investigations were carried on. During this time also he found time to make notes upon the lan- guages and customs of the Indian tribes with which he came in contact. These notes were embodied in ‘Contributions to the Ethnography and Philology of the Indian Tribes of the Missouri River,’ published in the ‘ Transactions of the American Philosophi- cal Society,’ Philadelphia, 1862; in a ‘Sketch of the Mandan In- dians, with some Observations illustrating the Grammatical Struc- ture of their Language,’ published in the Amerzcan Journal of Sctence in 1862; and in ‘ Brief Notes on the Pawnee, Winnebago, and Omaha Languages,’ published in the ‘ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,’ Philadelphia, 1869. In May, 1862, Dr. Hayden was appointed acting-assistant sur- geon of volunteers by the surgeon-general of the United States Army, and was sent to Satterlee Hospital in Philadelphia. He was ccafirmed by the United States Senate as assistant-surgeon and full surgeon of volunteers on the same day (Feb. 19, 1863), and sent to Beaufort, S.C., as chief medical officer, where he re- mained for one year, when he was ordered to Washington as assist- ant medical inspector of the Department of Washington. On the 19th of February, 1864, he was sent to Winchester, Va., as chief medical officer of the army in the Shenandoah valley. Here he re- mained until May, 1865, when he resigned, and was brevetted lieu- tenant-colonel for meritorious services during the war. During the remainder of the year 1865 he was employed in work at the Smith- sonian Institution. It was during this year that he was elected professor of geology.and mineralogy in the University of Penn- 2 SCIENGE sylvania, —a position he held until 1872, when the increased exec- utive duties in connection with the Geological Survey of the Terri- tories induced him to resign. In the summer of 1866 he undertook another expedition to the Bad Lands of Dakota, under the auspices of the Academy of Nat- ural Sciences of Philadelphia, for the purpose of clearing up some doubtful points in the geology of that region, and returned with large and valuable collections of vertebrate fossils, which were de- scribed in a memoir published by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia in 1869. From 1867 to 1879 the history of Dr. Hayden is the history of the United States Geological Survey of the Territories, of which he was geologist-in-charge, and to the success of which he devoted all his energies during the twelve years of its existence. In this time more than fifty volumes, to- gether with numerous maps, were issued under his supervision. One of the results of his surveys, and the one in which he probably took the greatest interest, was the setting-aside by Congress of the Yellowstone National Park. The idea of reserving this region as a park or pleasure-ground for the people originated with Dr. Hay- den, and the law setting it apart was prepared under his direction. * The work of the Geological Survey of the Territories had its con- summation in the Atlas of Colorado, which increased greatly our knowledge of one of the most interesting portions of the Great West. In 1879, after the disbanding of the Survey of the Terri- tories, Dr. Hayden received an appointment as geologist on the newly organized United States Geological Survey. For about three years he was occupied in the completing of the business of the Geological and Geographical Survey of the Territories, and the preparation of the final results of that survey. His health had al- ready begun to fail, but early in 1883 he asked to be relieved from the supervision of the printing of the reports, and during the three following seasons. he undertook field-work in Montana. By the latter part of the year 1886 his health had become so poor that he was confined most of the time to his bed. He then resigned his position as geologist, closing an honorable connection with the government that included twenty-eight years of actual service as naturalist, surgeon, and geologist. To the general interest in sci- ence excited by the enthusiastic labors of Dr. Hayden, in his geo- logic explorations, is due in a great degree the existence and con- tinuance of the present United States Geological Survey. In 1876 the degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Rochester, and in June, 1886, the same degree was conferred upon him by the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Hayden was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and of many other societies scattered throughout the country. He was also honorary and corresponding member of a large number of foreign societies. As to Dr. Hayden’s personal character, those who were person- ally associated with him know best how genial he was, and how sincere and enthusiastic his desire to forward the cause of science. Although impulsive at times, he was generous to a fault. His subordinates all knew that each one stood upon his own merits, and that due credit would be awarded his successful efforts. The same spirit actuated him in respect to those not immediately con- nected with him. His views are expressed as follows in one of his earliest reports, when speaking of those who had preceded him: “ Any man who regards the permanency or endurance of his own reputation will not ignore any of these frontier men who made their early explorations under circumstances of great danger and hard- ship.” His ideas were broad and liberal. He aimed to makea thorough astronomical, topographical, geological, and botanical survey of the Great West, with a view to the development of its mining and agri- cultural resources. The greater part of his work for the govern- ment and for science was a labor of love. SCARLET-FEVER REPORT.!— II. Dr. R. G. Eccles of Brooklyn, N.Y., does not believe that scarlet-fever ever arises except from a pre-existent case, and says, “The following from Dr. H. B. Baker of Lansing, Mich., will help to explain some possible cases of so-called de zovo origin: 1 Continued from Sczence of Dec. 16, 1887. [Vor le Non 7 ‘The Michigan State Board of Health has received information from Dr. Sifton, health-officer of Sutton’s Bay Township, which illustrates ina striking way how this country gets contagious diseases from the old countries. Oct. 2, 1887, a family arrived in Sutton’s Bay, Leelanaw County, direct from Norway. The family came over in the steamship “ Ohio,” of the Inman line, reaching New York, Sept. 30. Scarlet-fever was on board the steamer during the pas- sage, one child dying before the landing, and “ several more were sick in the same way.” One child of this family was taken sick with scarlet-fever the day after reaching New York. The family, how- ever, proceeded over the New York Central and the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern, to Michigan; then over the Detroit, Grand Haven, and Milwaukee, and the Grand Rapids and Indiana, to Traverse City; then to Sutton’s Bay. Another child of the family has since come down with the disease. The family had a certifi- cate, signed by the surgeon of the steamer, that they had been pro- tected by vaccination against small-pox: so they passed without detention the quarantine authorities at the port of New York, after they had been exposed to a contagious disease which causes more deaths by far in this country than small-pox causes.’” He gives the following as an instance of the communicability of scarlet-fever which came under his own observation: ‘“ Arthur G., aged eight, came from the country to his Brooklyn home in sound health, A case of scarlet-fever (convalescent) being in the house upon his arrival, he was within twenty-four hours removed to other quarters, where there were no children and no disease. In a few days he had a severe attack. By perfect isolation no new cases occurred. Many such instances of short contact giving the disease have come under my observation. The best illustration my experience affords occurred during a visit I made to Wyandotte, Kan., in the winter of 1883. Mrs. S. had been visiting relatives in a distant State. In one family she called upon, they had scarlet-fever. The children were not with her. On her return home th a few days, a daughter, aged seven, was taken sick with what proved to be scarlet-fever. At this time there was not a case but itself in the ¢own, nor had there been for many months. In their trouble, neighbors called, and within two weeks there were ten or more cases. A relative who helped them in the care of the child had three cases in his own family, he proving to be one of the victims. Two customers of his who were waited upon by him while indisposed, but not con- fined to bed, had each cases among their children after the exposure. No other source of contagion was possible. It must here have been carried in the clothing. Mrs. H. (my wife’s mother), living in the country, visited a neighbor some miles distant, where a child was sick with scarlet-fever. A few days after the visit, her own son, aged four, who had not been exposed, was taken sick of this disease and died. There was no possible way of carrying the contagion other than upon the mother’s clothes. Boards of health should require all cases to be reported to them by district sanitary inspectors, aided by physicians, the police, and the public. Their duties should be the fer- reting-out of every case of contagious disease. To-day the position of inspector is a sinecure. Those holding such positions are well paid for doing almost nothing. Nearly half the cases of contagious diseases that occur, physicians do not see, nor even hear of, until some dangerous complication arises to give alarm. If they pursue a mild course, they are not heard of by the board of health, and the public schools and public conveyances scatter their virus broadcast. Conscientious physicians, too, are put at a disadvantage by their un- scrupulous competitors for public favor. The doctor who is known to faithfully report every case loses his practice. People are afraid to call him, because he interferes with the progress of the children at school, and often cuts off their source of livelihood, where they carry on some industry at home. Very many physicians have boasted to me that they never report such cases unless they become so serious that they are likely to lose them. Nor can any law compel them to do so, as it is easy to introduce the claim that they had not made out a positive diagnosis. Let the inspectors, who are in- dependent of the patients’ friends, discover and report them, using all possible means as assistance.” In reference to a plan for preventing the spread of the fever, Dr. Eccles says, “ The evidence we have, indicates that the germs or spores float as impalpable dust in the air. It is found by experi- ment that wet gauze, by evaporation, is colder than surrounding January 6, 1888. ] air. Dust is attracted from warm air to a cold body. If that body is wet, it adheres. By canopies of mosquito-netting over the sick- bed, kept wet with bichloride-of-mercury solution containing gly- ‘cerine, no dust can pass through the meshes in either direction. The cooled threads attract across the narrow space of the mesh all dust that reaches there. The glycerine and water fix it, and the corrosive sublimate sterilizes it. To keep up the application, two layers of netting are required, — one fixed, the other removable. The outer removable one can at stated times be wrung out of a fresh solution, and put back again. Overlapping folds can allow the passage of food, medicine, etc., to the patient. This provides perfect isolation even in a room occupied by others.’ R. Harvey Reed, M.D., Mansfield, O., secretary State Sanitary Association, has known cases where old rags taken and sold from scarlet-fever cases have been used by wipers, and they in turn have communicated the disease to their families. He could give many others if it were necessary, but this fact has long since been estab- lished. D. S. Kellogg, M.D., Plattsburgh, N.Y., believes that the disease may arise de novo, and bases his belief on the ground that he has had cases which he cannot reasonably determine, after careful in- vestigation, originated from any previously existing case. He says, “T believe scarlet-fever to be communicable, yet last spring my belief received a severe blow. My little boy, aged six, was severely sick with this disease. My baby, aged three, slept across the hall; and my son, aged eight, slept down stairs. The sick boy was kept in a room by himself. Yet his mother and I were constantly going from the sick one to the well ones, and ot ezther one of them took the disease. The sick boy ‘ peeled’ so thoroughly that the sheets had to be shaken in order to get rid of the fine flakes of skin. He had many toys that he played with after convalescence set in. I ‘disinfected the room in about six weeks from the beginning of his sickness, and the toys. He and the two other children have played with these toys ever since, have slept in the room for a number of months, and have not had any further scarlet-fever.”” He does not believe that any thing can be done by the use of remedies to prevent well persons from contracting the fever. He believes that if a person has been exposed to scarlet-fever, the better his physical condition, the better is he able to endure the disease. There are many instances that would make this not seem true. T.D. Crothers, M.D., Hartford, Conn., says, “In 1868 I traced in an epidemic twenty-one cases to contagion clearly. The com- municability was by contact in most cases ; inothers it was through the near association. In two instances a linen picture-book was the medium of communication of the poison. In several cases it “was taken by the clothing of persons who had been nursing such cases. Clothing has retained this infection several weeks when confined in a trunk. Many cases have occurred in a community, and been confined to a single case by means of isolation, quaran- tine, disinfection, and extreme cleanliness.” William H. Brewer, professor in Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, New Haven, Conn., in reply to the question whether scarlet-fever ever arises de novo, says, ‘There are insufficient data for a fosztive belief. From the evidence, however, that we have, I say zo, until better evidence is brought forward that it does arise de zovo. Quarantine the cases if public opinion will justify : if not, then the first duty of the board is to educate the public as to the facts and the dangers. So soon as the public is ready for it, scarlet-fever will be more rare than the small-pox. But before this can be brought about, there must be a strong public feeling that it is a controllable disease.” W.C. Van Bibber, M.D., Baltimore, Md., thinks that boards of health should endeavor to change the non-sanitary condition of neighborhoods and places; for, although scarlet-fever may not now be fairly numbered among the filth-diseases, yet cleaning and sani- tary laws may do good on general principles. Cleaning, segrega- tion, and belladonna internally, ventilation, and increased vigor by increasing the vigor of individuals, should be employed. He says, “I attended Christ Church Charity School, Baltimore, for thirty-six years. The means above mentioned were used where a case of scarlet-fever occurred. The school consisted of thirty-two children. In thirty-six years there was but one death. The dis- ease appeared in the school more than twenty times, and was al- SCIENCE, 3 ways kept confined to but few children by means of these precau- tions. By personal hygiene, continued life in open air, the use of belladonna internally to those exposed, and rubbing the diseased body with disinfectants, much may be done to prevent the spread of the disease. I combine in an oil embrocation (thymol, anise-oil) carbolic and salicylic acids, and camphor. DO FORESTS INFLUENCE RAINFALL ? IT is very generally believed that the culture of forests induces an increase in rainfall, and that their destruction diminishes it. A satisfactory explanation of this supposed phenomenon has never, as far as I am aware, been offered; and the only tangible support for the theory appears to consist in a few observations of rainfall in limited areas in central Europe, made before and after reforesting. It seems desirable that the question should be tested by all the evi- dence at hand, and the theory established or disproved by the facts. We have in this country the material for testing both phases of the theory upon a large scale and in an exhaustive man- ner. The prairie region, including Iowa, northern Missouri, southern Minnesota, most of Illinois, and a small part of Indiana, has, during the past thirty years, undergone a great change with respect to its vegetation. This great area of over 100,000 square miles, was, when settlement commenced, mainly grass-covered. It contained no forests. Belts of trees were found along the water-courses, upon the slopes of river-bluffs, and here and'there upon the slight elevations. But man has encouraged the growth of trees, and the area of arborescent vegetation has been greatly increased. It is an example of reforesting upon an immense scale, unequalled else- where upon the globe. Has the rainfall correspondingly in- creased ? The early settlers in Ohio found it mainly a forest-covered region. It has been remorselessly cleared. This area of 40,000 square miles does not contain to-day a tithe of the timber-land that it contained fifty years ago. Has the rainfall diminished ? The States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, with adjacent parts of New York, New Hampshire, and Maine, — an area of perhaps 25,000 square miles, — were, when Europeans entered them, densely covered with forests. In time these were al- most entirely cleared away. In recent years, however, a change in the occupations of the people of this densely settled region, in virtue of which the farms are being abandoned, while the inhabitants are becoming massed in the cities, has allowed an enormous increase in the wooded area of these States. To-day at least half this area is again covered with woods. If this theory be correct, the rainfall in this region should have diminished from the colonial times down to, say, 1860, while since that date it should have been on the increase. Are these the facts ? We have here three areas of considerable magnitude, in which radical changes in the forest-covering have been made during the present century. Fortunately, also, we have ample records of the rainfall during these periods. First, however, a word as to the character of the rainfall. Of all current meteorological phenomena, rainfall is thé most irregular, both as to time and place. The rainfall of one year may be double or treble that of the year before or the year following. At any one station these fluctuations are ordinarily so great as to thoroughly mask any secular change. It may vary greatly from place to place, even though the distance be small, while the change of the location of a gauge from the ground to the top of a house may make it give very different indications. For these reasons it is apparent that reliable results, in regard to a general increase or decrease of rain- fall, are to be obtained only by combining a large number of obser- vations scattered over many years and over the greatest possible variety of conditions. It is a very easy matter to so select stations, and years of observation, as to obtain any pre-arranged result. If there has taken place a change in the amount of rainfall in any or all of these regions, it must, in the nature of things, have been a progressive one, however disguised by sporadic fluctuations. Moreover, if this increase or decrease in rainfall produces the re- sults claimed for it, making a desert fruitful, or the reverse, it must 4 SCIENCE: be of considerable magnitude, sufficient to be expressed in inches, annually. In the prairie region I find twenty-four stations at which extended series of rainfall measurements have been made. None which have been used are less than ten years in duration, and they range thence up to forty years. The sum of all these series is four hundred and twenty-eight years. Each of these series was divided into two equal parts, and the total rainfall of each half obtained. On the theory of a progressive increase, the sum of the second half of the series should be greater than that of the first half. The following table exhibits the result. The first column gives the names of the stations; the second, the length of the series; the third, the total rainfall in the first half of each series ; the fourth, the same for the second half; and the fifth column, the differences between them, an increase having the plus-sign, a decrease the minus-sign. Prairie Region. AGGREGATE RAINFALL. : STATIONS. YEARS. DIFFERENCES. ist half. ad half. (CUNEO co9000d000n0000 bb0 22 348 420 +72 PAtth ens seinsyaitieisiisveteieisie,scclele 16 332 299 —33 Augusta.......... oodoDODSOD 18 352 341 —1r ID uboisseemieereeee eels Io 221 186 —35 Galesburg...... Batted iateaeye Io 175 158 —17 Manchestersccen eesciselcicis 18 335 325 —10 Marengonscnissticiceheericeicte 16 354 269 —85 Ottawawnerpricteiee sisi 14 266 235 —31 Peoriateeliel=te 90009000005 18 322 296 —26 INE dbdas56b005 BooabDGdADS 14 269 237 —32 Sandwich....... -...0...... 12 323 242 —81 Winnebago................. 14 271 239 —32 sWayanet scrip isis lcrsyeisieters cictelsic Io 195 Igi —4 Springfield...... Seige eepeate 30 704 763 +59 Dubuque......... aieches 18 293 317 +24 Omaha...... asaadao ea0o0ee 16 235 318 +83 Leavenworth...... os060D0a5 18 367 363 —4 Davenporte-esececeiceseee 22 463 406 =H ILA (GWT gydococoocesnuann 24 418 412 —6 Milwaukeeweenenesecineece 40 6rz 657 +46 ‘Brooksidemrerntereneoieren 10 232 250 +18 RortiMadisons.ce-. sence oe 26 569 457 —112 NOAH 555 Goonodasa 000 I4 306 282 —24 Muscatine......... .. Soot! 18 414 369 —45 The results, as will be seen, have a wide range, some stations showing an increase, while much the larger number show a de- crease. Now, although these series overlap one another in all sorts of ways, and do not necessarily refer to the same years, still, under the theory of a progressive change, they may be combined directly without involving error. We may add up columns 1 and 2 and strike a balance, and this balance shows a greater rainfall in the first period by 343 inches. Dividing this by the numberof years in the period, 217, it is discovered that on an average each station re- ceived per year 1.58 inches more rain during the first period than during the second: in other words, instead of an increase of rain- fall being produced by the increase of arborescent vegetation, there has occurred, from some cause, an actual diminution. I should be very slow to argue from this a deleterious action flowing from the increase of forests, but it seems to militate very strongly against a favorable action upon rainfall. In Ohio the contrary result is to be sought; viz., a decrease in rainfalt owing to the destruction of forests. In this State I find twelve stations, with series ranging from ten to forty-eight years each, and an aggregate of two hundred and ninety-four years. The [Vor. XI. No. 257 observations have been treated as were those in the prairie region, with results as given in the following table : — Ohio. AGGREGATE RAINFALL. STATIONS. YEARS. ; DIFFERENCES. 1st half. ad half, CANIM cosgccdsnosbeses 46 1044 965 —79 Cleveland teriaptetemeleieaeeet 28 513 531 +18 GCollerertiil eerie eaiaee 14 329 319 —10 SEAINISbOrOeee e/elelal sisiaieisee ire 16 329 307 —22 Hudson ............- Saon0dd 12 203 241 +38 Kelley’s Island............. 10 166 159 a7, (Mariet tavmeens sin ccteee meee 48 1005 1033 +28 Poxrtsmouthiee peers 26 475 547 +72 Steubenville.............+-- 40 807 836 +29 eRoled Onaetettetetelelelelete eseieie 22 412 364 —48 (Ux banabrtsenie= satel seer 18 353 333 —20 Wratenvilletmeesrttieee ier 14 275 245 —30 It will be seen that in this case the total rainfall of the first half of the series is slightly greater than that of the second half, the difference being 31 inches, which, divided by the number of years in the first half of the series, shows, that, along with the clearing of the forests, the rainfall has diminished a trifling amount, being 0,21 of an inch less in each year of the second period than the first. It is, of course, unnecessary to add that this change is too small to have any meaning. In the third area, that of southern New England, there is to be expected a diminution of the rainfall, consequent upon deforesting, which was in progress down to, say, 1860, and, in more recent times, an increase due to reforesting. Prior to 1860, I have eigh- teen series, ranging in length from ten: to forty-six years, with an aggregate of four hundred years. Treated as before, the results shown in the following table are obtained. Summed up, they show that the aggregate rainfall in the second period was greater by 579 inches, or 2.9 inches in each year of the period. Deforesting, in this case, seems to be accompanied by a decided increase in rain- fall. New England. AGGREGATE RAINFALL. STATIONS. YEARS. DIFFERENCES, ist half, 2d half. | Amherst...... Doccocca=a660 24 506 550 | +44 New Haven ............... 20 456 453 | =) Boston'en ce. essaccins cence 34 689 723 | +34 Cambridge Rddcsosbaesodeons 20 435 491 +56 Dowell teeeeieeiiebicencceeee= 12 267 274 +7 Lunenburgh ............++++ 20 493 544 +51 New Bedford .............. 46 978 958 | —20 iWealtham frertlrteialeiieieleeiiers 10 231 212 | —iI9 WOK CES ters etyetveletciistetels miter 20 435 523 +88 Fort Adams................ 12 204 273 —21 (Providencesiajss ise ieee 28 539 613 | +74 INEANA Nogsese coosanboosce | 26 555 555 | ° INV EGSy noob onscoccdasesbaos 26 527 528 +1 JERE ss ononog0d0b08 cons 22 402 413 +11 IN eWaWOrks setonteleleisieleieier ba) 211 246 | +35 WWies thPoin tissritelste silnieistetctete 20 466 486 +20 Brunswick ...............-- 30 604 748 +144 (Gardinereeseriy-seiseect eis 20 379 456 | +77 January 6, 1888. ] Subsequent to 1860, I have fourteen series, ranging in length from ten to twenty-four years, with an aggregate of two hundred years. The results, presented below, show that the rainfall in the two halves of these series was identical. AGGREGATE RAINFALL, STATIONS. YEARS. DIFFERENCES. 1st half, 2d half. PAmbersts 2 cise sei iioweeecinde 14 318 310 a8 New Haven................ 14 347 348 ue Boston........ 24 5907 572 —25 Fort Trumbull............. Io 241 229 —i2 Middletown................ 14 324 338 +14 Lawrence..... Seugtatoescee 12 279 265 14 Lunenburgh................ Iq 313 343 +30 New Bedford 14 300 348 +48 Providence... 16 377 393 +16 INE WN Go005 conocdsune Bilao 16 328 305 —23 TEGAN Sac occodssousonose 12 234 237 sr3 Ne waVior kee strcri stein cists cies 16 373 382 +9 WiestPointe seine eeerrins Io 246 209 —37 Gardiner repeal seen eta. 14 305 303 a With these results in view, it seems idle to discuss further the influence of forests upon rainfall from the economic point of view, asit is evidently too slight to be of the least practical importance. Man has not yet invented a method of controlling rainfall. HENRY GANNETT THE GERM THEORY AS A SUBJECT OF EDUCATION. THE time is past when it is necessary to discuss the probability of the ‘ germ theory ’as explaining infectious diseases. This is no longer a theory, but as fully demonstrated as most of the other universally accepted conclusions of science. No one to-day who is competent to form a judgment from a knowledge of the facts, will doubt that many infectious diseases are caused by the growth of microscopic organisms in the body. Of course, no general proof -of the parasitic nature of all infectious diseases has been adduced, nor is such general proof possible; but when the causal connection between certain specific bacteria and definite infectious diseases has in many cases been proved by a demonstration so conclusiveas to be beyond question, and when such causal connection has been rendered extremely probable in many other cases, indeed in almost every in- fectious disease, it is only ignorance of the facts that can explain any doubt as to the very general applicability of the theory. It is true that many, perhaps a majority, of practising physicians do not have much sympathy with the conception of the parasitic nature of in- fection, sometimes indeed treating the whole subject with ridicule. Some are incapable of forming correct judgments, but most of them have not found the time or inclination to study the subject enough to know what facts have been established. At the time when most of the physicians who are now practising were pursuing their studies, the germ theory of disease was scarcely entertained as a theory, and nowhere accepted. Only three or four years ago some of our better medical schools taught their students that the theory was a wild hypothesis, and destined to be exploded like any other visionary speculation. It is not surprising, therefore, that they should still refuse to accept a theory which so revolutionizes the conceptions of disease. But our leading physicians, including professors in better medical schools, are now convinced of the truth © of the theory and the great importance of the subject, and medical papers throughout the country are giving more and more space to the subject of bacteriology. The inevitable result of this will be that the next generation of doctors will accept the germ theory as the basis of practice. SCIENCE. 5 This discovery of the parasitic nature of infectious diseases is of more than scientific interest : it is of vast practical value. It has not yet, perhaps, contributed very materially to the methods of treating disease directly, although we may confidently expect great results in the future along this line. There is nothing to prevent direct experiments with germicides upon living bacteria in the lab- oratory, and we may hope in this way to get a more scientific method of curing infectious diseases, after the theory of their para- sitic nature becomes more truly the property of doctors as well as of scientists. Thus far, however, the value of the theory has been rather as the foundation of the science of preventive medicine. Here its importance cannot be overrated, and is only beginning to become realized. We need do no more than mention the advances made in surgery in the last twenty years, which are due almost solely to the knowl- edge of septic bacteria. It needs no words to enforce the value of discoveries in this line. Every one appreciates this matter; and the value of antiseptic dressing, which alone makes the difficult operations possible, is almost everywhere recognized, and its use taught in all medical schools. In other lines than surgery the value of the germ theory is ever greater, though at first sight not quite so apparent, since the matter is yet in its infancy. The great advantage which we are to acquire through this theory is not in curing infectious diseases, but in pre- venting them. Professor Koch, in a recent address to a class of medical students, voiced this fact: ‘“‘ Gentlemen,” he said, “you have been hitherto taught only how to cure disease, in the future you will be taught how to prevent disease.” We can see in this direction great practical results arising along at least two different lines. The first is by preparing the body to resist the disease, the method of inoculation. The most widespread instance of this method of treatment is of course vaccination for small-pox. Vac- cination was discovered, it is true, empirically, and entirely inde- pendent of the germ theory; but it finally received its ratzonale through the brilliant work and generalizations of Pasteur. Work- ing in accordance with the same idea of preventing a severe form of a disease by giving the individual previously a mild form, Pasteur has successfully treated splenic-fever and hydrophobia. Others, following in his lead, claim success in a similar treatment of yellow- fever and cholera, although these claims certainly need further verification. But only a beginning has been made in this direction, and it does not seem improbable that we may see a time when many of our most severe epidemics may be as thoroughly subdued by inoculation as small-pox has been by vaccination. But of much more importance than inoculation is the more natural method of avoiding the diseases. We are now learning to keep the bacteria away from our bodies, either by directly destroying them or by keeping away from the contaminating material. When we know the exact nature of an infectious disease, — what are the habits of the organism which produces it ; where they are most likely to be found lurking during epidemics, whether in water, food, clothing, drains, in the air, in the excreta or scales from the skin of the patient ; in what conditions they will grow, and what will kill them; how they make their way into the healthy body, whether by food, drink, by breathing, or by contact of infected material with the skin, —in short, when we understand the natural history of an infectious disease, it is usually easy to avoid it. If the disease is taken in drinking-water, it may be avoided or rendered harmless ; if in food, the food may be cooked ; if from excreta or clothing, they may be easily disinfected by some of the effective germicides ; if by contact with the skin, care in handling the infected material, and dis- infecting the skin afterward, will usually suffice. As yet we have discovered no way of avoiding contagion which comes to us in the air, but we are just beginning to find out the extremely important fact that the air does not become contaminated with bacteria unless they are allowed to dry. Recent investigations have shown a smaller number of bacteria in the air of a well-kept sewer than in that of a poorly ventilated schoolroom. It is a valuable discovery that this means of infection by breathing—a means which we cannot guard against —is uncommon. The air is not the ordinary mode of transferrence of germs, and would be scarcely at all, if proper precautions were taken to prevent infectious material from drying. Here we immediately get suggestions as to the management of the 6 SCIENCE. hospital and the sick-room, and as to general sanitary measures, which will enable us to stamp out many of our most dreaded dis- eases. How suggestive to remember the experience of Professor Koch and his associates! While at Alexandria, although surrounded by the cholera epidemic, they had no difficulty in avoiding the disease by the adherence to certain precautions which a knowledge of the germ nature of cholera had taught them; but upon return to Ger- many, and being thus many hundreds of miles from the disease, one of them acquired the disease by a careless handling of the cholera germs which they had brought with them. What better proof could there be of the value of knowledge of the facts? By ‘study of bacteria we are beginning to understandjwhy one disease is contagious and another not contagious, or why a third disease may be sometimes contagious and at other times not at allso. We are learning what are the sure and what the worthless methods of dis- infection. Thus the mysteries connected with infectious diseases are disappearing. It is not of very much value to know the simple fact that a par- ticular disease is parasitic in its nature, unless this is made the basis of further intelligent observation. Nor does it help us any, as Dr. Hunt recently pointed out in this journal, to be able to distinguish the specific germ producing any disease if we end our observations with this discovery. It is of great value, however, to know the habits of the microbe and the conditions in which it can live, and these facts can only be discovered by the study of the microbe it- Self. This is the share which the biological laboratory must have in the matter. It is of course necessary to study the disease itself, and the conditions: under which it propagates itself, with vigor ; to study the origin of epidemics, their spread and decline; but this can only be done intelligently when we understand the nature of the organism producing it. When we know the habits of a microbe, — whether it lives in acid or alkali solutions, whether in filth or cleanliness, whether best in heat or cold, etc.,— then we ‘can successfully ask questions concerning the conditions in which the disease develops; then we can discover the history of the or- ganism from the time it leaves the body of the sick person until it gets into a second individual and again produces its disease; then we can learn what conditions favor and what hinder the disease; then we can discover how to prevent this transferrence, how to kill the microbe in its passage; and then we shall have gone far toward ridding the race of our vigorous epidemic diseases. Sanitary measures need no longer be blind methods applied tentatively, but may proceed directly at the root of the disease from a knowledge of its cause. Sanitary science must indeed be founded upon the knowledge of the nature and habits of microbes. Advance along these various lines of preventive medicine has been rapid in the last few years, and is becoming more and more so, and chiefly through the study of facts discovered in connection with the growth and distribution of microbes. Although many questions still remain unanswered, the knowledge of the Parasitic nature of infectious diseases is enabling doctors and scientists to- gether to ask intelligent questions concerning such diseases, and to search for their answers in the right direction. Until this knowl- edge had appeared, such questions and researches could only be made at random. In short, the knowledge collected concerning the parasitic nature of disease and the habits of the specific microbes is giving us hundreds of ways of fighting the diseases out- side of the body, even though it has yet not been very fruitful in directing our physicians how to treat the disease when it has once vigorously attacked the body. The importance of a general understanding of the facts con- nected with the discoveries in this direction cannot be overrated. Whois there, old or young, who would not be benefited by a knowl- edge of the source and cause of infectious diseases? Who is there who is not better prepared for life by a knowledge of what is meant by cleanliness, and why it is so desirable, particularly in time of epidemics, to keep our surroundings perfectly clean ? Ought not every one understand as far as possible where the in- fectious organisms are likely to be, and how they may be avoided? Indeed, is not this subject one of the many which we are beginning to recognize as desirable in our public-school teaching? Physiolo- gy is taught now in our schools by law, but what branch of physi- ology can be of more value to the public than a few principles con- [Vou XIP Nov257 nected with infectious diseases, and the means of keeping contagion away from our doors? If physiology is to be taught in the schools, would it not be well to include in it some such principles of vital importance, instead of compelling the student to learn the names of the bones in the body? At present the public gets informed in such matters only through the uncertain medium of the press, which contains as much false science as true; and as a result it is almost impossible rigidly to enforce sanitary measures. It is need- less to say that the public schools have not yet taken up the sub- ject. Our colleges, too, ought to see that every student knows something of this matter. A few of them already realize the fact, and have made a beginning in this line. Our training-schools for nurses ought certainly to put much force upon this subject and the practical precautions connected with it. But, after all, we must look primarily to our medical schools for teaching in this direction. Doctors will always be regarded as authorities in matters connected with health, in spite of nurses or the sayings of scientists; and it is through them that the public must receive its education. The medical schools must therefore lead in this matter. It is true that medical schools aim to teach chiefly how to cure disease, and as yet the germ theory has not materially aided in this direction. It is of course difficult to find time, in the already crowded course, to introduce any new subject not directly related to the cure of disease. But bacteriology is a subject too important to be neglected : it readily forms a part of pathology, and most schools do find time for a treatinent of thissubject. Our medical schools are now push- ing on in this direction. Two or three years ago the theory was dismissed with a word, even in our best schools; and that word was frequently one of ridicule. Now many of the leading medical schools pay considerable attention to the subject. Several of them have among their faculty special bacteriological students who give instruction in this line. A few have well-equipped bacteriological laboratories, and others are looking in the same direction. To what extent the subject is treated in the medical schools of the country in general, or in the training-schools for nurses, cannot be stated at present. Inquiries are being set on foot in this regard, the results of which will appear in some future numbers of this journal. H, W. Conn. AMERICAN SOCIETY OF NATURALISTS. THE annual meeting of the American Society of Naturalists was held in the Peabody Museum, New Haven, on Dec. 27 and the two following days. The object of the society is to help instructors in the natural sciences by discussing the methods of research and of instruction. Leaving to the other scientific associations the func- tion of presenting and discussing results, this society, composed of professors and specialists, devotes itself to the publication of new methods, improved apparatus, and aids to science-teaching, all of which are apt to be scattered through various periodicals, and thus fail to secure that general adoption which a practical demonstration of their usefulness would bring about. The work of the society falls into two sections, — biology and geology, — and a day of each meeting is devoted to each of these topics, while the third day is given over to a general discussion upon some attractive subject. The society, though in existence only for a very few years, has a large membership, including in its list many of the eminent leaders of science in this country and in Canada. The attendance at the recent meeting was quite large, and the proceedings both interest- ing and profitable. The proceedings were opened by the address of the president, Dr. Harrison Allen of Philadelphia. His subject was ‘The Incon- stant in Biology,’ and was devoted to the discussion of variations in animal structure not easily referable to any law, but to which careful study would attach considerable significance. In particular, he called attention to the prevalence of hairy parts and of color- spots in animals that had to a greater or less extent deviated from their normal type. If, for example, a variety broke from the pre- vailing color of its kind, the original color would be retained at certain very definite spots: these are found at the tip of the tail, another around the eyes, a third on the skin covering the dorsal column, and elsewhere. The peculiar constancy of these places of a “January 6, 1888.] ‘rapidly as desirable. ‘nature and under domestication. retention of the original color was especially emphasized, and the inference drawn that here was something too deep for natural or other selection to weed out, and the explanation of which would be a valuable contribution to the history of animal life. Dr. Allen illustrated his propositions with a series of mounted specimens, and brought out an interesting discussion upon color-markings in gen- eral. Dr. Oliver exhibited a series of carefully prepared wools for the detection of color-blindness and of sub-normal color-perception. Professor Gage described an easy method of injecting the thoracic duct and of demonstrating it for students. Professor Osborn ex- hibited some sections of the brain and spinal cord prepared by a method that allows of more accurate work than has hitherto been possible. Dr. Minot exhibited a new microtome of his own inven- tion, for which he justly claimed some important advantages. In ‘this the knife is stationary, and by a simple motion of a wheel the thinnest sections can be automatically cut as accurately and as The instrument will be supplied by the Edu- cational Supply Company, Boston. Prof. H. N. Martin showed a very simple device by which either the closing or the opening shock could be separately used for stimulating nerve-muscle preparations ‘in physiological work. A very interesting paper was that of Prof. S. F. Clarke, presenting a classroom demonstration of variation in By a series of stuffed fancy pigeons the very varied and fantastic forms of variation that the will of man could bring about was most beautifully impressed ; and in striking contrast to this was a series of sparrows, the distinction between which required the closest observation, but which repre- sented no less than eight genera and thirteen natural species, Prof. E. S. Morse, with his usual happy manner, részméed the kinds of museum show-cases employed in Europe, and accented the points of value in each. To the general student of science the discussion upon science- teaching in the schools, to which an entire day was devoted, would form a most interesting feature of the meeting. The discussion was introduced by Prof. Ramsay Wright of the University of Toronto, who briefly sketched the admirable system of science-teach- ing in the schools of Ontario. Here the whole educational system is in charge of a minister of education, who has at his service the ad- vice of the university professors, and who, with their aid, has drawn up a schedule of instruction in science which is utopian compared with any thing that exists in the schools of this country. Here the fact that the government controls the granting of certificates and the appointment of teachers has solved the problem of securing able science-teachers for the schools. Prof. Alexander Winchell of the University of Michigan followed with a forcible plea for the educational value of the study of geology. He claimed for this study the discipline of all those powers of the developing mind upon which atrue culture was based. In the child, observation, training of the senses, was the first natural process ; and this it was, too, that geology first demanded. With the growth of mental powers came the wider field for their employment, in the induction of the general geologic principles from the observed facts, in the grand deductions from these, and in the exercise of the imagination that geological periods make necessary. “He would thus urge the teaching of geology in the elementary schools ; and, because this study afforded such varied opportunity for the exercise of all the faculties proportionate to the natural order of their devel- opment, he thought it proper to speak of a geological culture. The next contribution to the discussion was by Professor Mac- Closkie of Princeton College. He urged in a very emphatic manner the rights of science as opposed to the word-knowledge and the language-culture, that absorbs so much of school time and energy. While the position urged was not a new one, it very forcibly ex- pressed the independent right of science to a very early and im- portant place upon the curriculum of every school. The discussion was concluded by Professor Rice of Wesleyan College, who pre- sented a masterly exposition of the theoretical and practical advan- tages of science-teaching in the schools. The boy or girl that has not been spoiled by artificial means is invariably interested in the phenomena of nature surrounding him or her on all sides. It is with reference to these that their questions are asked, and it is in the observation of these that they find a satisfaction of their natural SCIENCE. 7 curiosity. The current methods of teaching in large measure crush this natural interest, and substitute for it an unnecessarily stupefy- ing word-drill. The result of this is that young men come to the higher schools with a total lack of appreciation for the world of natural fact, and, what is worse, a dulling of all the faculties by which such an appreciation can be attained. It is not the facts of science, but the appetite of the mind for this kind of knowledge, that is to be ever kept awake, and without which that new sense for the teachings of nature cannot be fostered. All these papers brought out an animated and profitable gen- eral discussion from various members. The sense of the meeting was unanimously in favor of the views expressed above; and the advantages of introducing science into the elementary schools was urged not only for its practical value, but for its satisfying the requirements of the natural growth of mind and its general disci- plinary value. That children properly trained to an interest in the affairs of science do really bring to their more mature years an ap- preciation for true science, and the ability to carry it on to a high grade of cultivation, has been proved more than once. On the practical side the question of the order of the sciences in school-work was discussed, and the general opinion was in favor of systematic botany as the topic with which to begin, then physiology, and then physical geography. A complete course in physiology, how- ever, must be based upon some knowledge of physics and chemis- try. A committee was appointed to consider the preparation of a schedule of science instruction for the schools, and was authorized to report in full at the next meeting of the society. The geological part of the proceedings was opened with a paper by Prof. James D. Dana, who recounted some of his recent obser- vations on the Hawaiian volcanoes with especial reference to the connection between seismic phenomena and lava eruptions. The rarity of explosive action, so common in most volcanoes, is well known to be the most distinguishing feature of the Sandwich Is- land craters. The mountains are nearly pure lava-cones, and the eruptions are fissure eruptions. In only two of the numerous re- corded outbreaks, viz., in those of 1868 and 1887, have earthquakes of any violence been noticed. These shocks increased regularly in intensity, and were abruptly terminated with the appearance of the lava. Professor Dana concludes that they were produced by the forcible rending of the solid crust, caused primarily by the vapor tension from water heated from the outside of the lava-con- duit; and secondly by the hydrostatic pressure of the lava itself within the conduit. In most cases the formation of the fissure through which the lava is extruded is accomplished ‘so quietly that the first intimation of an approaching eruption is the red glow of the molten mass. In conclusion an interesting comparison was drawn between the quiet type of lava-flow prevalent at the Sand- wich Islands and the violently explosive outbursts like those re- cently exhibited in Java and New Zealand. A paper by Mr. C. D. Walcott of the United States Geological Survey described an ingenious method of measuring the thickness of inclined strata. Professor Dwight described an admirable machine, devised by him, for cutting large sections in any plane through fossils. For this purpose a Kerr diamond saw is mounted horizontally, and held rigidly in a plane by two disks carrying small wheels which are in contact with both surfaces of the saw. The specimen to be cut is mounted and adjusted so as to bring any plane against the saw with an even pressure. A solution of soda was recommended as a lubricator. Prof. W. O. Crosby sent a paper upon the method of teaching mineralogy and lithology at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology. The last paper was presented by Dr. G. H. Williams, on the educational value of micropetrography, and illustrated by the exhibition of a new microscope of American manufacture, designed especially for students in this subject. A resolution was passed to request Congress to remove the duty on scientific books and apparatus, and to join with other associa- tions petitioning for this change in the laws. Professor Marsh was elected an honorary member of the society, to fill the vacancy left by the death of Professor Baird. Dr. Allen was re-elected presi- dent, and Professor Clarke secretary. The next meeting will be held in Baltimore. 8 SCE NGE: EXPLORATION AND TRAVEL. Dr. H. Meyer’s Ascent of the Kilima Ndjaro. IN a letter to the Geographical Society of Leipzig, which has been published in Petermann’s Mitteclungen, Dr. H. Meyer describes his ascent of the Kilima Ndjaro. On July 2 he left Taweta, and, after a two days’ march through steppes and brushes, he reached, in company with Herr von Eberstein, the village of Mare- ale, a chief of the Marangu. He was kindly received, and Mareale gave him three guides, with whom and twenty-two men of his cara- van he started for the Kibo, the higher summit of the Kilima Ndjaro. Ata height of 5,700 feet they passed the last plantations of bananas, and entered the primeval forests, which are always full of mist, at a height of 6,600 feet. After two days, having passed these forests, they reached the grassy belt surrounding the upper part of the mountain. Here they left the trail which leads along the south-eastern slope of the Kimawenzi to Useri, and turned north-westward, following the upper limit of the forests. At the VINA = SGU SUN . sy Hin NWA ZN Kilima Ndjaro NIN f (| < Ni ACCORDING TO i y DR. H. MEYER. ER \\ . end of the second day they reached the place where, in 1884, John- ston had staid for some time, at a height of 9,800 feet. Here part of the caravan remained, but eight men volunteered to carry tent, blankets, instruments, and provisions to the snow-line. The route led over grass-covered streams of lava, which were intersected by gulches of 150 feet depth, cut by the torrents which come from the snow-fields of the summit. From here the saddle between the Kimawenzi and Kibo appears almost horizontal. The travellers ascended a lava-stream, and soon reached a gently sloping region where meadows indicated the course of the brooks. Here the first patches of snow were met with, and Meyer left here his tent on the 9th of July, at an elevation of 14,000 feet. On the roth, when Meyer intended to strike camp, five of his ser- vants refused to accompany him any farther, and therefore they were left behind, while the rest of the caravan continued their march. After a short time they reached the steep, fissured hill c, from which the lava-stream had come on which they travelled the pre- ceding day. Here they discovered the series of parasitic craters a, 4, c, d, from which numerous lava-streams have flowed southward. [Vout. XI. No. 257 Some of these are separated by deep valleys, while others form a continuous plateau which stretches out far northward between the Kimawenzi and Kibo. Meyer proceeded near the southern part of these hills at a mean elevation of 16,000 feet, and made his last en- campment at the foot of the hill@a. As the night promised to be very cold, he sent his three negro servants back to the previous camp, and ordered them to return the next day. Thus he and Von Eberstein were alone, and passed the following night ata tempera- ture of —1r° C. (12° F.) in their small tent. After a careful ex- amination of the cone of Kibo with a spy-glass, Meyer concluded that an ascent on the south-eastern side was possible. But on the highest summit a light blue wall of ice was seen, which extended to a lower level on the south side of the mountain. In the beginning of the next day, after having passed lava-streams covered with large bowlders, the travellers reached continuous steep snow-fields filling the rounded valleys between enormous lava-streams. John- ston had reached this point, and a little farther to the north Count Teleki had attempted an ascent a few weeks before Meyer’s arrival. In the morning the weather was clear, the snow hard, and therefore the travellers succeeded in reaching a considerable elevation; but after three hours’ climbing, fog set in. In the beginning the mist was light, and the summit of the mountain could be seen occasion- ally. Wherever a lava-stream crosses an older one, a new snow- field begins, steeper than the preceding. At such points the travel- lers staid for a few minutes, making barometrical observations and collecting rock specimens and lichens. They were careful not to ascend too rapidly, as work in elevations of more than 17,000 feet in height is extremely exhausting. Later in the day the fog became thicker, the highest parts of the mountain became invisible, and the sun disappeared. The temperature fell from 8° C. (46° F.) to —30 C. (27° F.), and a snow-storm set in, which threatened to obliterate the track. About half an hour later, Herr von Eberstein began to fall back, and after a quarter of an hour more his strength left him. As they were not far distant from the rim of the crater, Meyer proceeded alone, and notwithstanding giddiness, breathless- ness, and exhaustion, succeeded in ascending the last steep snow- field. Here the slope became less steep, and, after having climbed over a field of gigantic bowlders of ice, he reached the ice wall which he had sighted from the last camp. It is about 100 feet high, and inaccessible without the help of several expert guides and a great apparatus of ropes, ladders, etc. Although Meyer did not reach the rim of the crater itself, he concludes that it is probably filled with ice, as the ice wall projects over it on all sides. After having observed the barometer and thermometer, he returned to where he had left Von Eberstein, who had meanwhile observed the boiling-point thermometer. After a rest of about a quarter of an hour, they continued their descent, and reached their tent after an absence of seven hours. On the following morning the northern part of the saddle was visited for making topographical observa- tions, and, after the three negroes had returned, the party con- tinued their descent of the mountain, and reached Mareale’s village after a march of four days. NOTES AND NEWS. ON Friday, Dec. 30, a meeting was held at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City for the purpose of or- ganizing an American physiological association. The association has for its object the promotion of physiological research and of social intercourse among the physiologists of the country. The as- sociation will meet as a section of the Medical Congress every three years. The meeting was presided over by Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, and many prominent physiologists from all parts of the country were present. A constitution was adopted, and Prof. H. P. Bow- ditch of the Harvard Medical School was elected president, and Prof. H. N. Martin of Johns Hopkins University, secretary and treasurer. “ — The seventh course of free lectures of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History will be given on Friday evenings in January, February, and March, 1888, in the rooms of the society. The fol- lowing is the programme: Jan. 6, Charles B. Going, ‘How the Chemist Works;’ Jan. 13, George Bullock, ‘Modern and Ortho- chromatic Photography applied to Natural History ;’ Jan. 20, B. Mer- January 6, 1888.] rill Ricketts, ‘ The Dermal Coverings of Animals and Plants ;’ Jan. 27, Joseph F. James, ‘ The Great Deserts of the Earth;’ Feb. 3, Amos R. Wells, ‘ Voleanoes;’ Feb. 10, D.5. Young, ‘ Some Char- acteristics of Fishes ;’ Feb. 17, Charles Dury, ‘Reason and Instinct in Animals ;’ Feb. 24, Walter S. Christopher, ‘Bacteria and Fer- mentation ;’ March 2, F. W. Langdon, ‘Races of Man;’ March 9g, A. B. Thrasher, ‘ The Voices of Animals.’ — The Council of the American Economic Association held its annual meeting in Hamilton Hall, Columbia College, at 10.30 A.M., Friday, Dec. 30. — The Polztical Science Quarterly for December contains sev- eral articles that are worth reading, though none of special impor- tance. Two of them are on the subject of profits and wages, —a subject that is sure to attract readers, but on which we cannot say that much light is shed. Professor Clark recognizes the fact, which most economists overlook, that a large portion of the employer’s profits is of a mercantile character, arising from buying and selling to good advantage rather than from special skill in production ; but, strangely enough, he thinks that this profit is due to causes beyond the employer’s control, and “ comes to him as rain from the clouds ;”” whereas it is due in great measure to his skill in taking advantage of the markets so as to buy at a low price and sell at a high one. The opening article of the number is a vigorous attack on the oleo- margarine law, and will be read with interest by all opponents of government interference. The article on local government in Eng- land is of interest just now, when new and extensive changes in that branch of the English Government are in contemplation. There is also an article of considerable historical interest, on the Constitution in reconstruction, giving an account of the contest be- tween Congress and President Johnson in regard to the recogni- tion of the Southern States and the guaranties to be required of them before such recognition was granted. The closing essay is on India’s unadjusted trade balance, and the usual complement of book-reviews fills up the number. This review, together with the Journal of Economzcs issued at Harvard, and the various publica- tions of the Johns Hopkins University, are an addition to our periodical literature; for they furnish a kind of reading that we should otherwise hardly get. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. ** Correspondents are requested to be as brief as posstble. The writer’s name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. Twenty copies of the number containing his communication will be furnished free to any correspondent on request. The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. The Flight of Birds. IN your issue of last week, my friend, Dr. Elliott Coues, takes part in the current discussion of the flight of birds with his usual boldness and independence, but not with his usual care and accu- racy. He practically begins his letter with the following ex cathedra condemnation of Professor Trowbridge’s theory, and denial of his facts : ‘‘ With regard to the alleged locking of the primaries: 1. It does not take place; 2. Did it take place, flight would be impossi- ble.” As Professer Trowbridge is abundantly able to defend himself, I leave the answer to the above extraordinary statements to him, and will simply remark, in passing, that I know from my own observa- tion that the locking of the primaries can and does occur, either by accident or design, and that when it takes place it does not render flight impossible, as it affects only the extremities of the feathers. It is evident that Dr. Coues has not taken pains to inform himself in regard to the facts brought forward by Professor Trowbridge, otherwise he would not have uttered such dogmatic assertions. Further on, Dr. Coues decapitates me much in the same way he does Professor Trowbridge; for he says, ‘The fixing of the wing of a mortally wounded bird in the manner described by Professor Newberry does not bear on the case. It is simply a muscular rigidity due to nervous shock, and of a part with the convulsive muscular action, which, under similar circumstances, results in the well-known ‘ towering ’ of hard-hit birds.” We have here other proof that Dr. Coues has not read all that has been said in this discussion : if he had done so, he would have SCIENCE. 9 seen that I did not claim that the automatic rigidity of the arm and fore-arm, the ‘setting’ of the wing, first described by Professor Wyman, had any thing whatever to do with the locking of the primaries. As was said in the discussion of Professor Trow- bridge’s paper before the Academy of Sciences, and reported in my former letter to Sczence, the spreading and folding, and, according to Professor Trowbridge, the locking of the primaries, are functions of the manus, and have nothing to do with the flexion and extension of the arm. The spread of the wings of the turkey-buzzard main- tained after death, reported by me in my ‘ Notes on the Birds of Northern California and Oregon’ (Pacéfic Razlroad Reports, vol. vi. Zodlogy, p. 74), was certainly not a case of muscular spasm. My report of it will be found at the place cited, and is as fol- lows :— “For the purpose of examining this bird in California, to deter- mine for myself its identity, or otherwise, with the turkey-buzzard of the East, I took occasion to shoot one which was flying over us in the upper part of the Sacramento valley. He made no motion indicating that he had been struck by my shot, but sailed on with widely expanded and motionless wings, as before. Gradually, how- ever, he began to descend in wide and regular circles, till finally, without a wing-flap, he settled as lightly as a feather on the prairie, and remained motionless. I went to him, and found him resting in the grass, his wings still widely and evenly expanded, but the head drooping and life extinct. It was a male, large, in fine plum- age, and apparently identical with ours ; then, too late, I regretted that I had been the cause of a death so calm and dignified.” I have been shooting now for a great many years, have killed many thousands of birds, and ought to know what their behavior is when mortally wounded ; yet I do not hesitate to say that the ex- tension of the wings in this case and those reported by Dr. Storer was not due to muscular spasm, but to a locking of the wing- bones. Nor had the death of the turkey-buzzard, cited above, any thing whatever in common with the phenomena of ‘towering,’ as asserted by Dr. Coues. Toweringis exhibited only by birds which are wounded in the head, and which, with confused intellects, fly up and up, perhaps till lost toview. I have reported one such case in my notes which is typical, and I here repeat my account of it to show that it was totally distinct from all wing-setting, spasmodic or articular. “ Once when collecting water-birds on San Pablo Bay, California, I shot a gull (Larus Hermannz), which fell, apparently dead, upon some rocks near me. When I stooped to pick it up, however, it flew swiftly away, and mounted in circles higher and higher until it disappeared.” The article by Bergmann in Miiller’s Archzv ftir Anatomze und Phystologie (1839) has no bearing upon the statements made by Professor Trowbridge or myself. It is true that Bergmann de- scribes the sliding of the radius on the ulna, and in the discovery of this anatomical feature he antedates Wyman; but he makes no reference to the ‘setting’ of birds’ wings, which was the special subject of Professor Wyman’s note. All Bergmann says about the function of the anatomical peculiarity which he pointed out is, “ that it is desirable that observations should be made (for which he had no opportunity) to determine whether it. might not have efficiency in the soaring of rapacious birds or in the flight of those which must quickly change the direction of their flight.” In conclusion I will venture to suggest that neither Professor Trowbridge nor myself are such tyros in science as to warrant the didactic tone which Dr. Coues assumes. Professor Trowbridge needs no indorsement from me, but I venture to say that he is one of the most eminent engineers in the country, and that he has oc- cupied himself for many years in the study of the mechanics of ani- mal locomotion, upon which subject he is as well informed as any one living. As for myself, I was for many years as enthusiastic an ornithologist as Dr. Coues himself, and have shot over as much ground, and have perhaps killed as many birds. I was also edu- cated as a physician, and, at the time I made the observations cited above, I was serving as naturalist and medical officer to a detach- ment of troops. I would also call attention to the fact, that, for all the interesting information we now have in regard to the structure and functions of the wings of birds, we are indebted, not to ornithologists, but te 10 } SCIENGE:; ‘comparative anatomists: it is therefore quite possible that even Dr. Coues may learn something from one outside his profession. J.S. NEWBERRY. New York, Jan. 3. THE communication of Mr. Elliott Coues in the last number of Sczence, on the mechanism of the flight of birds, renders a response from me, in the interest of science, indispensable. This is the more necessary on account of the unavoidable delay which has occurred in the publication of a paper sent by my son to the Ornzthologzst and Oologzst, and which will appear in the next number of that periodical, and also the delay in the publication of the paper read by me before the National Academy of Sciences, and which has given rise to comment and discussion, and is referred to in Mr. Coues’s communication. During the last autumn my son, C. C. Trowbridge, who is now a pupil in the Hopkins Grammar School at New Haven, Conn., and who has for several years devoted much of his leisure time to the collection and study of birds, brought to me a hawk which he had shot while it was soaring, and called my attention to the fact that the four outer primaries in each wing were interlocked; that part of each primary along which the lower margin was cut away lap- ping over or behind the succeeding primary, which was cut along its anterior or upper margin to permit of this interlocking and crossing of these feathers. This was the condition of the wings when he picked up the bird. The general appearances of the wings were so little altered from their ordinary aspects that the interlock- ing would ordinarily escape notice. My son suggested that this interlocking has the effect of relieving the muscular action required for the extension of the primaries during long flights, especially in soaring birds, and, further, that it might aid the bird in steering its way while soaring. This discovery seemed to me of much interest ; and after having assured myself by inquiries, and the examination of works on orni- thology, that it had not been made by others, I concluded to bring the subject tothe notice of the New York Academy of Sciences, and shortly afterwards read a paper in relation to the same before the National Academy of Sciences. I supposed that all lovers of true science would welcome so in- teresting a discovery, even though it was made by a boy. Such, indeed, was the reception of the paper by all the naturalists present; Professor Marsh, Professor Newberry, and Professor Cope commending the paper, and Dr. Gill, who was not present, but to whom I had exhibited drawings of a wing, and explained the mat- ter, giving encouraging assent to the novelty and importance of the discovery. I mention the names of these gentlemen, because I do not think they will ever have reason or cause to regret their favor- able comments, nor to retract their opinions. During many years’study of animal mechanics I have found no facts which exhibit more wonderfully and beautifully than those I have described, the mechanical adjustment of the organs of motion to the medium in which motion takes place, and to the conditions for which provision is made. I have in my possession the wings of two large hawks (Buteo Yineatus and Buteo borealis) in which the effects of the habitual interlocking of the four outer primaries has been to wear deep notches, and to produce permanent wrinkles, in the feathers at the point of crossing or overlapping. These I have shown to many Scientific men without hearing a doubt expressed of the object or uses of the emarginate cuttings. These long primaries present a serious resistance, with a long leverage, when a bird is soaring, which would overtax the extensor muscles in long-continued soar- ing flights, if not relieved by the process of interlocking. That this interlocking does not impede flight, but in a wonderful and pecul- iar way aids the evolutions of the bird, is evident from the fact that by this interlocking a curvature is given to the anterior edge of the wing, which produces a warped surface, thus enabling the bird to have easy control of the wing with the least possible exertion. A perfectly flat, thin disk, in moving through air, is liable to be vio- lently inverted, or turned broadside to the motion, by the slightest change of angle with the plane of motion. Every one has noticed this when a playing-card is seen to fall through the air. The edge- wise position is one of extremely unstable equilibrium. This would be the condition of the outer part of the wing in soaring, were it [Vot. XI. No. 257 not for the warped-surface form which, in the wings I have ex- amined, is almost wholly maintained by the interlocking of the primaries, justifying my son’s remark that this interlocking is an aid to steering, in soaring flight. Mr. Coues, in his communication to Scéence, disposes of all this matter by a sententious dictum, which, from his extensive knowl- edge of ornithology, must be regarded as an extra-judicial opinion, pronounced with much regret, but with the severe force which sci- ence and truth demand, in the following words :— “Much as I regret my absence on those occasions [the meetings at which the papers were read and discussed], I am still more sorry to be obliged to dissent without qualification from the position taken, . . . which is, to my knowledge, quite untenable. . . . With regard to the alleged locking of the primaries: 1. It does not take place; 2. Did it take place, flight would be impossible.” And further, “It is fortunate that the mechanism of the wing does not permit the primaries to lock in the manner that has been supposed, for, if it did so, birds could not fly.” I am necessarily provoked, by these unexplained judgments, to test Mr. Coues’s knowledge of the mechanism of the wing which “does not permit the primaries to be locked.” I have found, by dissecting the wings of the hawks which I have referred to, that in these birds ten muscles are concerned in the movements of that part of the wing which corresponds to the human hand. Among these are three muscles, with their tendons, which have for their object solely the extension and flexion of the four or five outer pri- maries. The extensor muscles lie between the radius and ulna of the fore-arm, but the tendons run through the wrist-joint and along the hand to the joints of what corresponds in the human hand to the fore-finger, acting solely to extend the four or five primaries be- yond any extension which they could otherwise have. The flexor muscle lies in the hand,—a very small muscle, — with its tendon so attached that its only use is to flex the four or five primaries through the small angle by which they are extended by the opposing muscles just described. These muscles are not referred to, nor described, in Mr. Coues’s admirable and voluminous work on ornithology, and I beg that he will inform the readers of Sczence where specific descriptions of these particular muscles, and their uses, can be found. There are two other muscles whose tendons are so attached to the joints of the wrist, in the specimens I have, that when the wrist is extended or flexed by the larger extensors and flexors, a partial rotatory motion outwards and inwards may be given to the whole hand. May I ask Mr. Coues where I can find specific descriptions of these muscles, and their uses? These several muscles are prin- cipally concerned in the mechanism which does permit of the lock- ing of the primaries. Mr. Coues discusses another matter in his communication which has only a very general bearing on this question of the primaries. It is the automatic or concomitant extension and flexure of the wrist in birds when the elbow is extended or flexed. In the speci- mens which I have examined, I have found an inelastic tendon, without a muscle attached, fastened at one end to the humerus at the elbow, and at the other to the hand at the wrist, which is an essential feature in this purely kinematic combination. Moreover, this tendon, or string, plays another important part in acting asa string to the bow of the ulna, and taking the strain which might break the ulna, when the bird strikes the air strongly, but for this remarkable support. This is not referred to in Mr. Coues’s work, and I would ask him where I may find its description. Finally, will Mr. Coues explain wy birds cannot fly when a few inches in length of the outer primaries lap over and behind others ? Mechanically this makes a very strong wing, admirably adapted to soaring flight, for which it is evidently intended; and in one in- stance, at least, which I have given, the bird did apparently fly very well and very naturally with its primaries thus interlocked. Moreover, from my own experiments with wings, both before dissection and after the muscles and tendons have been exposed, so that they might be operated by hand, I am convinced that the in- terlocking of the primaries is a simple and easy operation, entirely under control of the bird, and with many birds is habitual. W. P. TROWBRIDGE. New York, Jan. 3. r 3 ; January 6, 1888.] ; Eskimo and the Indian. THE criticisms of Mr. Chamberlain’s letter (Sczezce, Dec. 2) by Dr. Boas and Mr. Murdoch are sound, forcible, and instructive ; but these critics have confined their strictures wholly to the Eskimoan words. So, using the alphabet adopted by the Bureau of Ethnology for recording Indian languages, I will point out some errors made by Mr. Chamberlain in the words of his comparative list taken from the Iroquoian languages. After making due allowance for the rude and imperfect ‘ orthog- raphy ’ of the words, it is necessary to say that a¢a (‘father’) and ekentng (‘woman’) are not Tuscaroran terms; that 7p (‘die’) and nzbey (‘water’) are not Mohawk words; that azfaa (‘father’) is not Huron: these vocables, having these forms and with these meanings, are not Iroquoian. (1) we'-nz's, and not guennzes, is the correct form of this term for ‘copper.’ It is evidently the word ‘penny’ or ‘pence’ (possibly penning or peningens), adopted by the Iroquois, and adapted to théir own peculiar utterance. In earlier times they most invariably substituted £w for f or 4, because these sounds did not occur in their speech. (2) ké-nd'-tcya@’ is the proper form of £azadzza, and, being pre- dicative, it signifies ‘it is copper,’ and not simply ‘ copper;’ it also means ‘it is a pot or kettle,’ and is more frequently used in this latter sense. Its derivation is not clear, but, in accordance with the genius of Iroquoian speech, it presupposes the nominal or substan- tive form, o-2d/-¢cya’, this, in turn, points to an earlier 0-2d-tcyo''- kwe, —a form still extant in some of the cognate languages, and which form is evidently from the predicative ye-2da-tcyo''-kwd’ (‘one cooks rice (wheat) by which’), undoubtedly referring to the cone- bottomed earthen ‘ pots’ or ‘kettles’ so used. The circumstance that unburnished copper resembles very much these clay ‘ pots’ in color would quite naturally serve as a distinctive characteristic by which to describe this metal. @-nd'-tcyd as a predicative signi- fies either ‘ pot’ or ‘copper,’ but as a substantive, only ‘ pot,’ which is probably its oldest meaning. Mr. Chamberlain compares the preceding two words with the Eskimoan azmooyak (‘copper’). One of the two is clearly of European origin, and the other is possibly, but not probably, related to the Eskimoan term. (3) e-Ane'-kér is the proper orthography of ekneken. It is a de- rivative term denoting ‘above,’ ‘on the surface.’ Its probable original signification is ‘ sun-ward,’ ‘ sun-side,’ or ‘ toward-sun.’ It certainly never meant ‘sky’ in Iroquoian speech; but the Una- lashkan zzzyak with which it is compared means both ‘sky’ and ‘above’ in the list. (4) 0-néi'-ya@’, and not ozza, is the proper Iroquoian word for ‘bone. The Eskimoan rownzk (‘bone’) has clearly no ‘ fortui- tous coincidence ’ of sound with it. (5) Ze-'gé%'-ha, and not haenyeha, is the proper form of this Iro- quoian expression. It signifies ‘my younger brother’ (literally, ‘ my brother small ’), and not simply ‘ brother.’ (6) tcya’-ta'-te-kén, and not jattatege, is the true form of this vocable: it means ‘ye two are brothers to each other,’ and not ‘brother’ alone. The Eskimoan azayoa (‘his elder brother’), anaga, and agztuda have clearly no evident similarity of sound or meaning with the two preceding Iroquoian words, he-'¢ér'-hd and tcya-ta'-te-ken. (7) she-yén'-hd, and not cheahhah, represents the orthoepy of this predicative term, which means ‘thy daughter,’ and not simply ‘child.’ Literally it signifies ‘ thou one hast small.’ The Eskimoan word zyaye (‘child ’) has no apparent affinity here. (8) e-nz'-se-ra’, and neither eghnzsera nor ennzsera, is the proper form of this word, meaning ‘day,’ a form used mainly in composi- tion. It is a derivative form of the word é%-¢d’ or e-ni'-¢d’ (‘ day,’ originally ‘sun’). The Eskimoan azyark evidently means ‘a long day,’ and not simply ‘day.’ No similarity of sound or meaning ap- pears here. ~ (9) Zon'-nt‘s (meaning ‘I make, build, or render it,’ and not simply ‘do’) is a better form of Zoznzs. K for ka- (‘he —it’), -o7- ni‘- (‘make,’ ‘build,’ or ‘render’), -s (terminative sign of customary action), — this is the etymology of the word, which has no similarity of sound or meaning with the Eskimoan ¢cheneyoag (‘he works ’). (10) shéx-¢é'™’-yé, and not swntunke, represents the proper pro- SCIEN GE: If nunciation of this word : it means ‘on or against thy ear,’ and not simply ‘ear;’ the initial s- is the sign of the second person posses-. sive, -’Zye is the locative, and -Zén-¢- is the noun stem or root. The Tchuktschi ¢chzntak, or correctly sz¢a (‘his ear’), apparently has. no affinity with this word. (11) e-nyén'-kyé, and not ayznga, misquoted from eyzugza, is the correct form of this word, which signifies ‘on or against one’s hand,’ and not ‘finger,’ as does the Tchuktschi azhanha, with, which it is questionably compared. (12) yw’'-ndks, and not yoneks, means ‘it is burning,’ and not simply ‘fire,’ as in the list: yz- (‘it’), -’d%-(‘to burn’), -s (the terminative sign of customary action). The Eskimoan oonoktook ° (‘fire ” or ‘to burn’) has but a doubtful claim to relationship with this word. (13) 0-st’-/d@’, and neither achzta (Huron), nor ochazta (Ononda- ga), is the correct form of this vocable, meaning ‘foot.’ The stem or root of the word is -s?’-¢-, a stem that never meant ‘hand.’ The Eskimoan etscheak or arksezt (‘foot’ or ‘ hand’) has certainly no evident affinity with this word. (14) yo-ya'-né-re’, and not zoyanere, is the true form of this term or expression, which signifies ‘it is good ’ affirmatively: thus, yo- (‘it’), -ya-2é-r- (‘the good,’ ‘the right,’ or ‘the noble’), -ve’ (« to have or possess’). The Eskimoan ayunztork or ayunztsog means ‘not bad,’ and so ‘good’ negatively. These two words evidently have no affinity nor a common origin. (15) os-o''-¢@’, and not chotta, is the proper form of this word, denoting ‘hand.’ With this meaning it is common to only two of the Iroquoian languages. Originally it meant ‘finger,’ signifying literally ‘ hand-protruding-thing.’ (16) The orthography of zoatsshera is so uncouth that it is very difficult to discover its meaning. It does not mean ‘head,’ but ‘hat’ or ‘scalp-covering.’ It is properly written 0-70-he'-tcrd, which form has no relation whatever to Tchuktschi zaschho (‘head’). (17) o'~“skwa’, and not kechkwaa, is the proper orthography of this term for ‘lip.’ It bears no resemblance to the Eskimoan word kakkiviar (‘lip’), with which it is compared. (18) e-'nt'-hd, and not exzhah nor aneehah, is the proper spell- ing of this word, which means ‘ one is male,’ but never ‘ man.’ (19) on'-kwe, but not ozguzch, is the correct form of this term, which denotes ‘ homo,’ ‘man,’ ‘a human being,’ but never ‘ male,’ to distinguish sex. This word, and e-’7t/-2d above, have no root in common : so, having no literal meaning common to both of them, they should not be compared with one and the same word. The Eskimoan words azgut and zznuk (‘man’) are not related, and why compare them with two Iroquoian terms (€-’xt'-Ad and o7'-kwe) likewise unrelated to each other ? (20) é*’-7é" represents the true form of azekah (Huron), eanuh (Tuscarora), ava (Nottoway), and means ‘my mother,’ not simply ‘mother.’ The root of the word is -é€9-, which signifies ‘ mother.’ It is my belief that it is related to -of-nit‘- (‘to make or produce,’ ‘to build or render’). (21) 0-nyon'-sd@, not yaunga, is the true form of this Iroquoian word for ‘nose.’ It has no apparent affinity to Tchuktschi chznga (‘nose’). (22) Awé®-¢d'-én, but not guechtaha, is the correct form of this. Seneca-Iroquoian word, meaning ‘red.’ It is compound, and evi- dently signified ‘it is blood-marked,’ and so ‘it is red.’ There is. an evident metathesis of the first and second syllables. The Tchuktschi Lawachtuk (‘red’) clearly has no affinity whatever to. this word. (23) d-we®-nd''-s@ and d-wé®-td‘'-sé are the forms of exnasa (‘tongue’) found among the Iroquoian languages. They do not, however, resemble the Unalashkan ahnaz (‘ tongue’). (24) o-nye'-y@ and o-nz-ye-te are the true Mohawk forms of ountyeghte (‘snow ’); o-nz'-yd is the proper Seneca form of oxyezak (also ‘snow ’): these words have no apparent relation to Tchuktschi annu or annju of the same meaning. (25) so'-rak, not soluck, is the true Mohawk word for ‘duck.’ The Eskimoan word for ‘ duck’ is ¢chorlerk. : (26) o'-she, and not oxhey, is the correct form in Huron of this Iroquoian word for ‘winter’ or ‘year.’ Its stem is -s#-, and means ‘snow.’ The Eskimoan wkshzok and wktschuk have no ap- parent affinity or relationship with this word. 12 SCIENCE. Thus, in comparing thirty different words taken from the several Irequoian languages, there is scarcely a single instance in which Mr. Chamberlain has not misapprehended the true sound and real meaning of the words. Before an effective or satisfactory comparison between the words of two languages, or of two families of languages, can be made, the investigator should possess at least an elementary knowledge of both, a knowledge of their rules of etymology and syntax, and of their laws of vocalic and consonantic change. This is especially true with reference to the languages of the Iroquoian peoples. These tongues are among the most difficult of Indian languages to investigate and to understand. To a want of knowledge of these facts, and to the use of faulty vocabularies, are evidently due Mr. Chamberlain’s errors. An at- tempt to establish the affinity and common origin of two languages upon material so faulty as that criticised is scarcely likely to be successful. J. N. B. HEWITT. Bureau of Ethnology, Washington, D.C., Dec. 26. The Study of Languages. YOUR correspondent, H. L. E., asks in the last issue of Sczence whether there is any practical method of learning to read a lan- guage without the use of a dictionary. The present writer has -Jearned to read readily two languages without the use of either dic- tionary or grammar, and believes his method not only possible, but the better way, when a knowledge of the language, not its gram- mar, is the one desired. His plan has been to begin with some easy author, and follow its text closely while some one reads aloud an English or some other familiar translation. By following sucha plan through a dozen or more books, one may then venture on some simple author, dispensing with both dictionary and translation so far as possible, and learning the meanings of the new words, as they appear, from the context. After having read twenty or thirty novels or similar works in this way, he should begin the study of the grammar, and will then be surprised to find that conjugations and declensions are no longer a task. After one has learned a lan- guage, a dictionary is very useful; but he certainly can never get a thorough and exact knowledge of the meanings of words from Eng- lish synonymes. W. New Haven, Dec. 30. Conspiracy of Silence. THE following statement, made by one of your correspondents (Sczence, x. 309) — “ But a general conspiracy among men of sci- ence to suppress views because they are new and unacceptable to old fogies, is impossible; and your correspondent and the Duke of Argyll must certainly know that fact, and it will remain a fact, in spite of any number of instances of special local repression that can be cited” —is a logical curiosity. Whether or not the general conspiracy exists can only be known by examining the local action in special cases which may arise; but we are told, that, whatever be the result of this examination, we must recognize the impossi- bility of such a conspiracy. This is decidedly a new process of scientific demonstration. Old Poz, who remarked, “ I’ve said it, and that’s enough to convince me,” was accustomed to reason in this manner. The same correspondent states, speaking of Mr. Bonney, “‘ What he meant in his rebuke of the Duke of Argyll is evident: he meant that any one man of science not engaged in a given special line of research can not and dares not make up his own mind as to the validity of one of two opposing theories until those others who have that special line of research in hand have practically reached some consent on the subject.” This is the true ecclesiastical method, to which Mr. Bonney ob- jected. It is the method of the child in the song, who says, — “*T believe it, for my mother told me so.” It is the method of the man who has a profound reverence for authority, so well pictured by Thackeray : — “So, as he had nothing to say in reply, he began to be immensely interested in the furniture round about him, and to praise Lady Clavering’s taste with all his might. “«Me, don’t praise me,’ said honest Lady Clavering, ‘it’s all the [Vor. XI. No. 257 upholsterer’s doings and Captain Strong's, they did it all while we was at the Park — and —and — Lady Rockminster has been here and says the salongs are very well,’ said Lady Clavering with an ‘air and tone of great deference. “« My cousin Laura has been studying with her,’ said Pen. ““«Tt’s not the dowager : it is ze Lady Rockminster.’ “«Indeed!’ cried Major Pendennis, when he heard this great name of fashion, ‘if you have her ladyship’s approval, Lady Claver- ing, you cannot be far wrong. Lady Rockminster, I should say, Arthur, is the very centre of the circle of fashion and taste. The rooms ave beautiful, indeed!’ and the major’s voice hushed as he spoke of this great lady, and he looked round and surveyed the apartments awfully and respectfully, as if he had been at church.” It may be that the views imputed by Mr. Lesley to Mr. Bonney are correct, but this would not be suspected from the latter’s pub- lished words: and it looks as if Mr. Bonney’s defender, in his zeal, has given away Mr. Bonney’s case, and the scientist’s case in gen- eral, more completely even than was done by Mr. Bonney himself. RICHARD H. BUEL. New York, Dec. 30. Color and Other Associations. IN a note on color and other associations, which I wrote, and which was printed in Sczence (vi. 1885, p. 242), 1 gave the colors which my daughter Mildred (then a child eight years old) associ- ated with the days of the week, with the numerals 1-10, and with the letters of the alphabet in 1882. I stated that I found the same colors associated with the same forms in 1885. I have lately ques- tioned her again, and I find the same colors are still associated with the same forms in nearly every case. Saturday’s color has changed from pure white to cream color; F has changed from black to brown; Q, which had no certain color, is now called pur- ple; X and Y, which had not much color, are now called red and cream color (Q, X, and Y are now more frequently in use than then); 8, which was white, is now called cream color (a similar change to that of Saturday); and 9, which was called ‘greenish?’ is now called blue. With these few exceptions, the same colors have been constantly associated with the same days, numerals, and letters from 1882 to 1888,—six years. This case appears to me now, as formerly, to deserve record in connection with the observa- tions of Galton and others on the subject. EDWARD S. HOLDEN. Berkeley, Cal., Dec. 20. Thomas Braidwood and the Deaf-Mutes. IN a footnote to a page of Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Heart of Mid- Lothian,’ I read, ““‘ Dumbiedikes’ is really the name of the house bordering on the King’s Park (Edinburgh), so called because the late Mr. Braidwood, an instructor of the deaf-and-dumb, resided there with his pupils.” Now, I happen to know that Thomas Braidwood sold his estate (that goes by the name of our family, and is situated next to the Duke of Hamilton’s, some twenty miles beyond Glasgow) in order to use the proceeds to start his institution for educating the deaf- and-dumb ; and if Professor Bell, in his address at the Gallaudet anniversary, a notice of which is published in Sczewce of Dec. 23, meant it as a reproach to the memory of Mr. Braidwood, when he says the school “was a money-making institution,” and that its principal “had bound all his teachers under a heavy fine not to re- veal his methods to any one,” it may be pertinent to ask if, under the circumstances, it was not only prudent, but a duty of Mr. Braidwood, to make his institution pay its own way. His all was involved in it; and, had he not used what some people would call a necessary precaution, his school might have perished for want of funds, and himself been impoverished. At all events, that is the view his relations take of the matter. And when one reviews the dreary centuries preceding, when every now and again some gentle soul proposed to educate the deaf-and- dumb only for it to drop out of thought again, perhaps it would be best to guard with caution the acts of him who staked his entire wealth in the venture, and spent forty-six years of life in establish- ing as a living fact what was but as a grand dream for centuries. THOMAS W. BRAIDWOOD, Vineland, N.J., Dec. 29. January 6, 1888. | SCMBIN CIS, 111 “THE PUZZLER,’ 9 A NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE oe Oni PUZZLES anp GAME PROBLEMS. The first number to be issued early in January. Ask your newsdealer for it. 10 CENTS A COPY. $1.20 PER YEAR. N. D. C. HODGES, 47 LAFAYETTE PLACE, N. Y. BOOK-NOTES. absolutely pure, and by comparison will be| Cambridge, Eng-, University Pr. 224 p. 12°. 80 — Every year Hood’s Household Calendar takes a step forward, as its ingenious publish- ers strike some new thought in style and ar- rangement. For 1888 Hood’s Calendar has the ‘cut-out ’ head of a young girl surrounded by a blue hood, making a very beautiful and attractive picture. The coloring is wonder- fully well done, and the pad, also printed in colors with a special design for every month, helps make up a very artistic calendar. Three millions of these calendars are issued, and all our readers should have one. Ask your druggist, or send six cents in stamps to C. I. Hood & Co., Lowell, Mass. — Messrs. W.S. Kimball & Co.’s (Roches- ter, N.Y.) straight-cut cigarettes are manu- factured from the finest, most costly, and brilliantly colored natural leaf, and warranted found unequalled. A selected force of the highest skilled workmen only, are employed in their manufacture. 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Henry Pettit and Augustus Harris’s Great English Melodrama. A RUN OF LUCK. A RUN OF LUCK. A RUN OF LUCK. A RUN OF LUCK. MATINEES WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY. BUNNELL’S| 728-32 Broadway. | Admission, 25c. Children, roc. OLD t a Sacred Hairy Family Continuous LONDON Dog Circus Wonders. | Entertainment. MUSEUM, | The Greatest Show. | Noon till rr P.M [DEN MUSEE. 23d St., between sth and 6th Ave. Open from rr torr. Sunday, x to rz. New Groups, New Paintings. New Attractions. ERDELYI NACZI. and his HUNGARIAN ORCHESTRA. CONCERTS FROM 3tos AND 8torr. Second exhibition of Paintings now open. Admission to all, 50 cents. Children 25 cents. Ajeeb, the Mystifying Chess Automaton. VERTISING PURO, iv SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. No. 259 SCRIBNERS' IMPORTANT TEXTBOOKS: DRAWING. THE ESSENTIALS OF PERSPECTIVE. With numerous illustrations drawn by the author. By L. W. MILLER, Principal of the School of Industrial Art of the Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia. .1 vol., oblong 8vo, $1.50. 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By James McCosu, D.D., LL.D., President of Princeton College. I.—The Cognitive Powers. II.—The Motive Powers. 2 vols., I2mo, each $1.50. The first volume contains an analysis of the operations of the senses, and of their relation to the intellectual processes, and devotes consider- able space to a discussion of Sense-perception, from the physiological side, accompanied by appropriate cuts. The second volume continues the subject with a discussion of the power of the Conscience, Emotions, and Will. Professor WILLIAM DE W. HYDE, of Bowdoin College.—‘* This Book is written ina clear and simple style; it breathes a sweet and winning spirit ; and it is inspired by a noble purpose. In these respects it is a model of what a text-book should be.” ELEMENTS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY By GreorGeE T. Lapp, D.D., Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Yale University. With Numerous Illustrations. 8vo, $4.50. Prof. WILLIAM JAMES, in Zhe Wation.—‘‘ His erudition and his broad-mindedness are on a par with each other; and his volume will probably for many years to come, be the standard work of reference on the subject.” AN OUTLINE STUDY OF MAN. OR, THE BODY AND MIND IN ONE SYSTEM. By Marx Hopkins, D.D., LL.D., Late President of Williams College. With Illustrative diagrams. Revised Edition. 12mo, $1.75. This work is on an entirely new plan. It presents man in his unity, and his several faculties and their relations are so presented to the eye in illustrative diagrams as to be readily apprehended. Gen. A.C. ARMSTRONG, Principal of Hampton Institute.—‘* For over ten years I have made it a text-book in the senior class of this school. It is, I think, the greatest and most useful of the books of the greatest of our American educators.” *,.* The Above books will be supplied to teachers at SpectaL NET RATEs. logue and Circulars mailed to any address on application. ELEMENTS OF INTELLECTUAL SCIENCE. A Manual for Schools and Colleges. By Noau Porter, D.D., LL.D. 8vo, $3.00. This is an abridgement of the author's ‘‘ Human Intellect,” contain- ing all the matter necessary for use in the class-room, and has been in- troduced as a text-book in Yale, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Oberlin, Bates, Hamilton, Vassar, and Smith Colleges ; Wesleyan, Ohio, Lehigh, and Wooster Universities, and many other colleges, academies, normal, and high schools. ELEMENTS OF MORAL SCIENCE. THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL. By Noau Porter, D.D., LL.D. 8vo, $3.00. This treatise is intended primarily for the use of college and university students, and is prepared with especial reference to the class-room. E. G. Ropinson, President Brown University. — ‘‘ It has all the dis- tinguishing marks of the author’s work on‘ The Human Intellect,’ is full and comprehensive in its treatment, and very naturally follows it as a text-book for the class-room.” F JuLius H. SEELYE, President Amherst College.—‘‘It is copious and clear, with ample scholarship and remarkable insight, and I am sure that all teachers of Moral Science will find it a valuable aid in their in- structions.” ™ THE LAW OF LOVE, OR LOVE AS A LAW. OR, CHRISTIAN ETHICS. By Mark Hopkins, D.D., LL.D., Late President of Williams College. 12mo, $1.75. This is designed to follow the author’s ‘‘ Outline Study of Man.” As its title indicates, it is entirely an exposition of the cardinal precept of Christian philosophy in harmony with nature and on the basis of reason. Like the treatise on mental philosophy, it is adapted with unusual skill to educational uses. It appears in a new edition, which has been in part rewritten in order to bring it into closer relation to his ‘‘ Outline Study of Man,” of which work it is really a continuation. ce Terms for examination copies, and introduction rates together with full Descriptive Cata- CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, 743 & 745 Broadway, New York. SCIENCE NEW YORK, JANUARY 27, 1888. SINGLE Copies, TEN CENTs, $3.50 PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE. Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Olass Mail-Matter. Etthnological Map of South-eastern Europe. Editorial The New Sciences and their Didlowment)— Colonatnalnes: as the Result of Shiftless Observation. Volapuk The Peoples of South-eastern Europe 5 Values in Classification of the Stages of Growth and Decline, etc. Mental Science. Aphasia_ . : : The Psychology of Handwriting Health Matters. Foot-and-Mouth Disease, and its Relations to Human Scar- ___ latina as a Prophylactic The Bacillus of Cancer Book-Reviews. Lectures on Bacteria s The Children : How to Study Them L 39 Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania for 1886. : 0 6 , 45 Unfinished Worlds: a Study in Astronomy 45 - Alex. Melvitle Bell 39 | Notes and News 45 (o) : 4° | Letters to the Editor. i Bdeepige The Snow-Snake . 0 J. N. B. 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Admission to all, 50 cents. Children 25 cents, Ajeeb, the Mystifying Chess Automaton. [Vor. XI. No. 260 What Scott’s Emulsion Has Done! Over 25 Pounds Gainin Ten Weeks. Experience of a Prominent Citizen. THE CALIFORNIA Socrety FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE. San Francisco, July 7th, 1886. I took a severe cold upon my ehest and lungs and did not give it proper attention ; it developed into bronchitis, and in the fall of the same year I was threatened with consumption. Physicians or- dered me to a more congeni- al climate, and I came to San Franeciseo. Soon after my arrival I eommeneed taking Scott’s Emulsion of Cod Liver Oil with Hypophosphites reg- ularly three times a day. In ten weeks my avoirdupois went from 155 to180 pounds and over; the cough mean- time ceased. C.R. BENNETT. SOLD BY ALL DRUCCISTS. EUROP ELEVENTH SEASON 13,000 MILES, 96 DAYS of FOREIGN TRAVEL, including the principal Countries, Capitals, Sights and Scenes. travel and hotels first class. All expenses included. 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SusscripTIons.—United States and Canada, $3.50 a year Great Britain and Europe, $4 a year Scfence Club-rates (in one remittance), subscr. t yr SS Be ADCS I yr... I 2 3 4 ADVERTISING RATES: I page r time $20 co Last page 5 30 00 SA PEO MINS 96 5 6 5 6 5 5 . I0 00 Lower half of front page . . . . . . 41200 reolumn . . Siete 7 00 For small advertisements the rate will be 6 cents per agate line. The following discounts are allowed on yearly con- tracts : — OMNIA Oo 5 4 6 8 5 8 Sg Se IIS “G6 d 66 So 6a 6 5 BE 52 pages 3375% Advertisements must be acceptable in every respect. ed until Wednesday, 10 A.M. SCIENCE ts sent free to those who advertise in it, as long as advertisement continues. ee ee FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 1888. THE GROWTH OF SCIENCE is well illustrated in the recent ap- pearance in the Cez¢zry of the series of articles on the new astron- omy by Prof. S. P. Langley. These have been republished in book form by Messrs. Ticknor & Co. of Boston. We now have a new chemistry, a new physics, and a new astronomy ; and, owing to the way in which the older brothers or older sisters have been endowed, these new-born sciences find themselves without the pecuniary means for their proper support. To quote from Professor Lang- ley’s preface, it is not generally understood that among us not only the support of the government, but with scarcely an exception every new private benefaction, is devoted to the old astronomy, which is relatively munificently endowed already, while that which he has called the new, so fruitful in results of interest and importance, struggles almost unaided. The great national observatories, like Greenwich or Washington, are the perfected development of that kind of astronomy which was only interested in recording the movements of the solar system. From primitive times man knew where the sun would rise on a certain day; and the record of this knowledge is left us in the prehistoric buildings, if such they may be called, of Britain. At Greenwich the moon has been ob- served, with scarcely an intermission, for a hundred and fifty years, but not for the purpose of seeing what it was made of, but for the purpose of forming the lunar tables, which, by means of the moon’s place among the stars, will give the navigator his positions. In the same way at the Washington observatory one may see a wonder- fully exact instrument strongly bolted to massive piers, and so im- movable that the sun can be observed by it but once daily as it crosses the meridian. This instrument is the complete attainment of that long line of progress in one direction of which the prehis- toric stones at Stonehenge mark the initial step, — the attainment, that is, purely of precision of measurement. The new branch of astronomy, which has had its entire growth within a few years, studies sun, moon, and stars for what they are in themselves and in relation to ourselves. Its study of the sun, beginning with its ex- ternal features, led to the further inquiry as to what it was made of, and then to finding the unexpected relations which it bore to the earth and our own daily lives onit. This new branch of inquiry is what Professor Langley calls the ‘ new astronomy ;’ and it is for this new astronomy — this study of the celestial bodies to find out their nature and their relation to us, rather than for the purpose of simply recording their relative motions —that Professor Langley has made so beautiful and so eloquent an appeal for the proper endowment of this new field of research. No one can read this book of Langley’s without feeeling that astronomy has acquired an entirely new interest for him. It now results in something more than the dry-looking pages upon pages of tables. THAT THE ORIGIN of color-blindness lies in the brain, and not in the eye, has been suggested by Professor Ramsay. While en- gaged in teaching in Brooklyn some years ago, the principal of a school insisted in treating every case of the sort as dependent on the will of the pupil. His remedy was the rod. This certainly seemed a tyrannical and unwarranted treatment, but the result was favorable to his theory. Is it possible that a thorough examination will ultimately demonstrate that the fault lies very largely in the shiftless methods of observation which have grown up under the old classical system of education, and which have to a large extent become hereditary? Professor Ramsay’s suggestion and his argu- ment deserve careful attention, and, if found correct, we have an- other and overwhelming reason for the newer education. At first sight, it is not perfectly clear, on the above theory, why it is that color- blindness should be more common among men than among women ; yet it is possible that this will be found to bear out the suggestion made above, for, with the discontinuance of the wearing of colors by the men, their interest in colors to a large extent must have ceased ; and if our old methods of education were to be continued much longer, it may be, that, with the less use of color by women in their dresses, an increase of color-blindness might result among them as well. It is doubtful, however, whether the introduction of the rod as a quick corrective will find many advocates. VOLAPUK. THIS is the name of an artificial language recently devised for international use. Similar attempts have been made at various times to produce a vehicle of uniform expression for the world’s speakers ; but modern literature knows nothing of these efforts. All have been abortive. Will Volaptik be more successful ? A universal language must have a phonetic representation —a ‘real character ’— that shall be easily and uniformly intelligible to all readers. The new candidate for universality is in the mean time unprovided with any international medium of writing. It can- not, therefore, while this want is unsupplied, be diffused as a spoken language. Take, for example, the title ‘ Volapiik.. The English reader deciphers this word into the syllables ‘ Vol-a-puk,’ with customary sounds; but the intended pronunciation is ‘ Voh-lah- puek.’ A French or a German reader would have no difficulty with the syllable ‘ ptik,’ but the English system of letters can give our readers no idea of the sound. The employment of Roman let- ters, while they have such diverse phonetic values in different lan- guages, must effectually prevent the oral use of Volapiik in differ- ent countries. Asa written language it might still, however, be of service. : Is Volapiik the best language that science can create for this ideographic purpose? Is it superior to previous essays of the same kind? The most elaborate and complete of all earlier schemes for a universal language is undoubtedly that of Bishop John Wilkins. This system was printed for the Royal Society in 1668. The analysis and the classification of ideas, on which the ‘ Philosophical Language’ is founded, are beautifully ingenious. A similar principle of arrangement was afterwards adopted by Dr. Roget in his well-known ‘Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases,’ —a book, by the way, which owes its existence to the labors of Bishop Wilkins, although no acknowledgment of such in- debtedness is to be found within its pages. The bishop’s scheme for a universal language is indeed referred to, but only as having been “soon found to be far too abstruse and recondite for practical application ;” while no mention is made of the grand feature of the work, on which the whole scheme is based, —the fundamental grouping of thoughts and expressions. This feature is simply, silently appropriated in the ‘Thesaurus.’ The latter is a very cleverly executed work; but the credit of its plan, however im- proved by Dr. Roget, should have been ascribed to the original designer, Bishop Wilkins. Before examining the details of Volapiik, let us look at some of the characteristics of the older scheme. The complete categories of ideas are comprised under forty ‘ genuses or heads,’ to each of which a radical sign is appropriated. This sign is susceptible of the addition of subordinate marks, which, on defined principles, signify species, differences, etc. The resulting geometrical figures make up the ‘real character.’ The application of the system is illustrated in the Lord’s Prayer 40 SCIENCE. and the Creed. The signs for the ideas ‘ heaven’ and ‘earth ’ are thus explained :— “|Heaven| This Generical Character is assigned to signifie World, the right angled affix on the left side, denoting the second Difference under that Genus, namely Heaven; and because there is no affix at the other end, therefore doth it signifie the Difference it- self, and not any Species.” “(Earth| The same Generical Character signifying World, the affix making a right Angle, doth denote the second difference un- der that Genus, namely the Celestial parts of itin general, amongst which, this Globe of Sea and Land whereon we live, is reckoned as the seventh Species, denoted by the affix at the other end.” These examples suffice to show the nature of the ‘ real character,’ which is obviously adapted for universal writing, because the ideas expressed by the signs are translatable into the words of any lan- guage. The Roman alphabet (with additional letters) is also made use of in application of the system to individual languages. The same forty ‘ genuses’ are expressed by simple syllables, such as a, de, bz, etc.; the differences under each genus being denoted by sequent consonants, as in dad, bag, bad, etc.; and the species by putting a vowel after the consonant, as in deba, deta, gade, pida, etc. A few words may be quoted to show the nature of the verbal forms in this ‘ philosophical language :’ — Ciie—othe lal = ‘from’ odab = ‘body’ coba =‘ father’ EE Sale” odad = ‘hell’ cobas = ‘son’ me = ‘as’ poto =‘day’ Dab =‘God’ itn Og Saba =‘Lord’ dad =‘heaven’ na =‘and’ salba = ‘kingdom’ é hem 2g — Duty tado = ‘power’ he =‘his’ nor — ‘for’ velco = ‘lead’ velpi = ‘give’ The principle on which these words are constructed may be un- derstood from the author’s explanation of the four following : — “TCoba| Co doth denote the Genus of Oeconomical Relation ; the letter [b] signifying the first difference under that Genus, which is Relation of Consanguinity; the vowel [a] the second Species, which is direct ascending ; namely, Parent.” “TCobas| The syllable [co] is assigned to the Genus of Oeco- nomical Relation, the letter [b] to the first difference, and the vowel [a] for the second species, the Letter [s] denoting the word hereby signified, to be an Opposite, viz. Son.” : “| Dad\ Da the Genus of World, and [d] the second difference, which is Heaven.” “Odad| [Da] is the Genus of world, [d] is the second differ- ence, which is Heaven, the vowel [o] which is opposite to [a] being prefixt, denotes this to be the word opposite to Heaven, viz. Hell.” In this way all thoughts find expression in fit words deduced from the associated meanings of their component letters. ‘“ Every Word being a description of the thing signified by it ; Every Letter being significant, either as to the Nature of the Thing, or the Grammatical Variations of the Word; besides the constant Anal- ogy observed in all kinds of Derivations and Inflexions.” With all these advantages, however, the philosophical language would need a philosopher to use it. Another part of Bishop Wilkins’s work ought not to pass un- noticed; namely, his analysis of English sounds. This is far superior to that of any preceding writer, and also more complete ’ than the schemes of the majority of subsequent phoneticians. If the bishop’s scheme for a universal language must be set aside as being beyond the ability of average learners, the logical, grammati- cal, and phonetic principles evolved in its development must always command the admiration of students. The new claimant for adoption as an international language pro- ceeds on the principle of selecting roots of words from the vocables of existing languages ; but the relation of the Volapiik words to the English, German, French, and other words from which they are derived, is so far from obvious, that the learner is not assisted by it to remember the meanings associated with the roots. English is said to have furnished about forty per cent of the adopted roots, yet, in a vocabulary extending over upwards of forty pages, only twelve of the roots exactly correspond with their English proto- [Vot. XI. No. 260 types. The roots might, indeed, just as well have been entirely ar- bitrary as to have been arbitrarily chosen in this fashion from exist- ing words. The method of root-duz/ding proposed by Bishop Wil- kins seems greatly preferable. Root-words having been selected, they are provided with a very complete and on the whole simple category of definitive letters and syllables, for prefixing or suffxing, to show number, gender, case, tense, mood, etc. The simple grammar of English has not been taken as the model in this department, but the complex arrange- ments of highly inflected languages. This is unfortunate; for we may safely assume that the universal language to be some time adopted will express all verbal relations by separate words, and not by root-inflection. The student will then need only to memorize words, and he will not require to know any thing of case-endings and other grammatical subtleties. On the other hand, if these matters are considered essentials of a language, the inflective scheme of Volapiik could hardly be improved on. For example: all plurals end in s, final -a denotes the possessive case, final -e the dative, and final -z the objective ; masculine genders end in om, and feminine in 7z (pronounced ‘ she’) ; adjective terminations are zk and zd, adverbial o and za, degrees of comparison being wz 27, and mo timo, active and passive verbs have their appropriate signs, as have also all persons, tenses, and moods; prepositions end in #%, interjections in 6, etc. The grammatical particulars to be attended to are very numerous, but the rules have the advantage of being absolute, and unburdened with exceptions. The inflective feature of the language must, however, present an unsurmountable obstacle to its popular employment. We cannot think that Volapiik solves the problem of a universal language. The system will naturally meet with the largest accept- ance in countries which already possess an inflected language ; for the manifest superiority of the Volapiik inflections, in regularity and simplicity, cannot but impress those accustomed to the complexi- ties and anomalies of inflection. Speakers of English are happily free from this source of difficulty, and to them Volapiik cannot be acceptable. The English language is itself reaching out towards universality, under the influence of commercial and social necessi- ties. The present form of the language may be considered as classical, and must be allowed to remain substantially what it is. But English is undoubtedly susceptible of modifying simplifications which would easily and perfectly fit it for international use. Leta committee be appointed, consisting of one British and one Ameri- can member, to investigate the subject, and suggest such changes as would remove anomalies, and I feel convinced that they would readily create a new and simple tongue in the form of what may be called ‘world English.’ This seems to be the most hopeful direction in which to look for universal language. ALEX. MELVILLE BELL. THE PEOPLES OF SOUTH-EASTERN EUROPE. AT the present time, when the idea of ‘nationality ’ rules the fates of Europe, those states have to pass through the severest struggles which have the most heterogeneous population, the parts of which gravitate to different centres. This is particularly the case in Aus- tria, and was the case in,Turkey. The latter, however, has disin- tegrated to such an extent that many of the peoples formerly in- cluded in its territory have gained their independence. The accompanying map shows the distribution of the peoples and the boundaries of the states of south-eastern Europe. At the present time, when the struggles of the Bulgarians for independence and unity excite so much interest, a description of their distribu- tion is of particular importance. The map shows that they in- habit the greater part of Bulgaria, while in the eastern part Turks are intermingled with them, Eastern Roumelia, which by the up- rise of 1886 joined Bulgaria, has a Bulgarian population in its west- ern half, while numerous Turks inhabit the east, and Greeks occupy the coast. But the territory of the Bulgarians is not confined to these two districts, which practically form one state. The south- eastern portion of Servia and ancient Macedonia is inhabited by them, and their territory extends northward to Ochrida. Their western neighbors are the Servians, of whom the Croatians and Slovenians form a branch. The map shows that they occupy the a January 27, 1888. | western part of this region from Montenegro and Servia north- westward, their greater number being under Austrian rule. While these peoples immigrated during the middle ages, numerous re- mains of the ancient inhabitants of south-eastern Europe are still extant, although in course of time much influenced by the immi- grants of the middle ages. The most important of these are the Greeks in Greece and the adjoining parts of Turkey ; on the Archi- pelago, Crete, and on many points of Asia Minor. Their distribu- tion all around the coasts of the A°gean Sea and on the south-west coast of the Black Sea shows that they are principally a seafaring and trading people. Colonies of Greeks are found in all great cities of the Orient. Their neighbors are the Albanese, who live in the tugged mountains of the western part of the Balkan Peninsula, east of Montenegro. They are presumably descendants of the ancient Illyrians, although much doubt prevails as to their descent. In southern Eubcea and around the Gulf of A°gina they live among Greeks. During the reign of the Romans over eastern Europe many peoples became Romanized. Their descendants are the Roume- nians in Roumenia, Bessarabia, Transylvania, eastern Hungary, and the north-eastern corner of Servia. It is of interest that a number of them, widely separated from the main body, should live in the Pindus, near Berat, and in a few villages of eastern Thessalia. The invasion of the Turks added a new element to these peoples, but there are only few places which are inhabited by them exclu- sively. Their principal territory in Europe is the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula, between the mouths of the Danube, Philip- popolis, and Constantinople; but, besides this, numerous isolated districts throughout the peninsula are inhabited by them. The number of Turks, however, in the outlying districts, which are not any longer under Turkish rule, has greatly decreased since the recent wars. The principal district of the Turks is Asia Minor. In the north-western part of south-eastern Europe we find an- other foreign people settled among the Indo-Europeans, — the Hungarians, who belong to the Finno-Tartarian race. They occupy the greater part of Hungary, where Germans, Servians, Roumenians, Russians, and Slovenians are settled among them, and the eastern part of Transylvania. Last of all we mention the ‘Germans, who are the neighbors of the Hungarians and Servians in the north-west, but have, besides, numerous colonies in Hun- gary, Transylvania, and near the mouths of the Danube. The development of these numerous peoples is one of the inter- esting problems of European history. It is hardly possible to classify the peoples who in ancient times lived in these regions. During the middle ages numerous peoples — the Gauls, Romans, Goths, Huns, Avars, Petchenegs, and Cumans— invaded the pe- ninsula; but the principal part of the population consists of the ancient Slovenes of Pannonia, who settled in course of time in the province of Moesia. About the middle of the seventh century we hear about their wars with the Byzantine empire. The most im- portant event in the early history of the southern Slavic peoples is the invasion of the Bulgarians. Their descent is doubtful, for their language has been lost. Gaster points out that not only the relics of Bulgarian language, which consist mostly of proper names, but also certain customs, are in favor of the theory that they be- longed to the Turkish peoples who ruled in southern Russia, and that with them came certain Finnish tribes. They crossed the Danube in 679 A.D., and in course of time subjected all peoples of south-eastern Europe. Within a few centuries they became amal- gamated with the Slavic people, whom they had conquered, and thus formed the Bulgarian people of the present time. We need only to mention that the Turkish invaders found all these peoples settled, and added a new element to the numerous races and peo- ples of that region. From this brief review of the facts it will be seen that there exists no homogeneous people in south-eastern Europe, but that all of them are the descendants of an extensive mixture of different peo- ples. Even the Greeks, whose language has comparatively little changed since the times of antiquity, have been greatly influenced by Slavic peoples. As none of thestates of this region comprises a population speak- ing only one language, and as at the present time the history of Europe is entirely ruled by the desire of each nation to be inde- SCIENCE. 4I pendent, the natural outcome of this state of affairs is a continuous struggle between the various peoples. But a glance at the map shows that the actual distribution of the peoples makes the estab- lishment of states comprising only one people impossible. A Greek empire would exclude all other peoples from the sea; a Bulgarian state would include numerous Greeks, Turks, and Albanese. It is of great interest that these difficulties have only arisen in our cen- tury, for before this time the idea of nationality was hardly known. It is only since the French revolution that the tendency of all peo- ples speaking one language to form one state has grownup. To this idea Italy and Germany owe their existence, and it threatens Austria and Turkey with destruction. It is remarkable to see how people bitterly opposed to one another, not on account of diverging interests, but on account of difference of language, in Europe, be- come merged in our continent into one great people; how the same process that has been going on in Europe so frequently during the middle ages, but only by means of wars, is going on peaceably in America. Our map shows that so long as the same ideas and interests remain the leading ones in the history of south-eastern Europe, there is a constant source of wars and minor troubles, even aside from the contending interests of Russia and Austria to gain a foothold on the AXgean Sea, and England’s fear of Russia’s commanding the entrance to the Black Sea. VALUES IN CLASSIFICATION OF THE STAGES OF GROWTH AND DECLINE, AND PROPOSITIONS FOR A NEW NOMENCLATURE. AT the meeting of the Boston Society of Natural History, Nov. 16, 1887, Prof. Alpheus Hyatt presented a paper, of which the fol- lowing is an abstract. He proposed, in accord with views pre- viously published in his ‘Larval Theory of the Origin of Tissue,’ * and an abstract of the same subsequently printed in the Amerzcan Journal of Sczence, May 31, 1886, to divide the animal kingdom into three comprehensive divisions: (1) Protozoa, unicellular an- imals, which propagate by means of asexual (autotemnic) fission and by spores, and build up colonies, but always remain typically unicellular ; (2) (Zesozoa, multicellular colonies, but composed of only one layer of cells, so closely connected that they form a layer of primitive tissue. They have more or less spherical forms, and propagate by means of ova, spermatozoa, and by autotemnic fis- sion, and have an aula or common cavity, but no specialized di- gestive cavity or archenteron; (3) Me¢azoa, complexes of multi- cellular colonies, in which growth by sexual union and resulting fission of the ovum form three primitive tissue layers, and build up a body in which an archenteron is always developed, they propagate always by means of ova and spermatozoa, autotemnic fission occur- ring only, if at all, during the earliest stages of the ovum. The stages of holoblastic ova may be in a general way classified as follows, to accord with that given above for the animal king- dom :— (1) The ovum or monoplast (Lankester) ; (2) the first stage of segmentation, which normally results in the production of two cells, the Monoplacula; (3) the second stage of segmentation, in which two layers arise, the Dzplopflacula. The first two stages alone seem to have parallel or representative adult forms among Protozoa. He proposed to classify these stages under the name of ‘protembryo.’ (4) The blastula is in aspect and general characteristics the mor- phological equivalent of the adults of the genera Volvox and Eudorina, the types of the AZesozoa or Blastrea. The latter are animals in which growth remained permanently arrested at the single-layered, spherical stage in the evolution of tissue-building forms. He proposed to classify these stages under the name of ‘“mesembryo.’ (5) The gastrula can be compared, as has been done by Haeckel, with the lower Pordfera (Ascones), but these have three layers like the lowest Hydrozoa, in which a three-layered gastrula-like stage has been permanently preserved. The proper name for these stages would therefore be ‘metembryo,’ in allusion to the fact that the ovum at this stage was probably essentially a metazoon, or a near approximation to this type. Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. xxiii. 1884, p. 45. 42 (6) The first and simpler planula stages, though often character- istic of the larger divisions of the animal kingdom, do not possess, as a rule, the essential, diagnostic characters of the larger divisions to which they belong, and he proposed to call them ‘neoembryos.’ Examples: the Czzctoplanula, the planula of the Celenterata, the Pluteus, the Trochosphere, the PzlédzZum, the earliest planula-like ciliated stages of Amphzoxus. (7) The latest of the more specialized planula-like stages are either directly transformed into, or else give rise to, other forms in which the characters of the larger divisions or types of the ani- mal kingdom begin to appear, at least so far as essential characters are concerned. Examples: the Ascula and Ampullinula, the Actinula, the Gulznula, the Velzzer, the internal worm-like form arising in Pz/¢édzum, the stage of’ the formation of the notochord in Amphioxus. He proposed, therefore, to interpret these relations by naming the embryo in these stages the ‘typembryo.’ This term can be applied to the Vauplzus of Crustacea, and the Echzn- ula’ of Echinodermata, as well as to those above noted. The application of such principles to the study of the younger stages of fossil Cephalopoda was productive of what seemed to be satisfactory results. The protoconch of Owen is, according to this nomenclature, a shell of a univalve Ve/éger among the cephalous Mollusca, and a typembryo, which, though eminently characteristic of that group, has no exact morphological equivalent among nor- mal adult forms of recent or fossil shells. The true larval, or, as they are here named, silphologic (SiA@y, ‘a grub’) stages began with the formation of what Owen appropri- ately called the apex of the conch or true shell. Among nautiloids this was a short living chamber occupied by the body of the an- imal, but having no siphon or septum. It was completed by the deposition of the apical plate, which sealed up the aperture of the protoconch, thus closing the opening, and cutting off communi- cation between the two interiors. This stage can’therefore be named the ‘asiphonula’ or siphonless larva. The second larval stage in Vautzlozdea was composed of a liv- ing chamber, closed apically and completed by a single septum, which had a cecal prolongation reaching across the first air-cham- ber and resting upon the inner side of the cicatrix. It is proposed to call this stage the ‘caecosiphonula,’ since it is undoubtedly the primitive stage of that organ. The cecosiphonula may indicate the former existence of an ancestral form having a central axis composed of similar closed funnels or cecal pouches. The third silphologic stage in nautiloids was completed by a sep- tum (the second in the apical part of the shell) having an open funnel extending apically and joined to a loose-textured siphonal wall which reached down into and lined the cazcum, thus forming a secondary closed tube. In accordance with the structure, this has been named the ‘ macrosiphonula.’ The fourth larval stage of the nautiloids was completed by the building of the third septum. This septum had a long funnel and attached porous wall, but this wall formed a true siphonal tube opening apically into the next section, the macrosiphon. This was the beginning of the small siphon, and can be appropriately termed the ‘microsiphonula.’ The microsiphonula was the typical stage of nearly all the known genera of nautiloids, beginning with the Orthoceratztes of the Cambrian, and found at the present time in Nautzlus, and also of allammonoids and belemnoids without ex- ception. It has also been found in tracing the descent of forms within sub-orders, families, and genera, that it is practicable to prove, that characteristics usually appear first in adult stages, and are then inherited at earlier and earlier stages in successive species: of the same stock, whether they occur on the same horizon or in different horizons. The adolescent stages are therefore of as great importance for tracing the genealogy of small groups as are the silphologic characters in larger groups. Thus one can speak in definite terms of the relations of the nealogic (Neadyc, ‘youth- 1 Address at the American Association by Alexander Agassiz, vol. xxix. 1880, p. 410 reprint, p. 22, shows that there is a stage of the embryo common to all orders of living Echinodermata. This stage, however, was not named in the address above quoted, which was intended as preliminary to an illustrated essay on the same subject j and Mr. Agassiz has supplied that omission in the following note, which I quote from a letter tome: ‘I intended some time, when revising my ‘ Address on Paleontological and Embryological Development,’ to call the earliest common stage of echinoderm embryos, ‘ Echinula,’ for convenience in making comparisons. — A. AGAssiIz.”’ SCIENCE: [Vo.. XI. No. 260 fulness’) stages, and their meaning, and importance in tracing the genealogy of families and genera, without danger of confusing them with the characters of any of the silphologic stages. After the silphologic and nealogic stages have been disposed of, there still remains the adult period, which is equally important in genealogical investigations, since it enables the observer to study the origin of many characters which afterwards become silphologic and nealogic in descendant forms. The use of a distinct term for the adult period becomes neces- sary not only on this account, and to separate its relations from those of preceding periods, but also because of the constant recur- rence and importance of representative forms. The term ‘ ephe- bology’ (’/E¢mBos, ‘the age of puberty’) has accordingly been adopted for the designation of the relations of the adult stages, and under this term can be classified also the representation of similar forms in different groups or morphological equivalents. These are often so exact that it becomes very difficult to separate them. They have been and will continue to be the most difficult and misleading obstacles to the student of genealogy and classification. In former essays the senile transformations and their correlations. with the degraded forms of the same groups have been described and defined by the term ‘geratology’ (Tépac, ‘old age’). There were two stages of decline or old age among ammonoids. The first of these is the clinologic (Kiiva, ‘to incline downwards’) stage. This immediately succeeded the ephebolic stage, and dur- ing its continuance the nealogic and ephebolic characteristics un- derwent retrogression. Ornaments, spines, and sutures degener- ated and lost their angularity ; the ribs or pile, and often the keel and channels, when these were present, became less prominent; and before this period closed, the whorl itself sometimes decreased ; showing that degeneration in the growth-force of the animal had taken place. In man the baldness of the head, loss of teeth and resorption of the alveoli, loss of the calves and rotund stomach, and return of early mental peculiarities, are phenomena of similar im- port. The last changes in the ontology of the animal took place in what can be called the ‘ nostologic’’ (Nécroc, ‘a return ’) stage, and during this period these tendencies reached their highest expression. Among ammonoids the ornaments were all lost by resorption, the whorl became almost as round and smooth as it was in the silpho- logic stage, and in extreme cases it even separated from the next whorl, leaving a perceptible gap. This almost complete reversion to the aspect of the silphologic stage can of course only occur in animals which attain an extreme age. MENTAL SCIENCE. Aphasia.! IN 1861 Broca suggested before the French Society of Anthropol- ogy that the only method of determining the functions of the brain was to co-ordinate marked symptoms during life with the lesions found in a post-mortem examination. Some months later he an- nounced his belief that the third frontal convolution of the left hemisphere of the brain was the seat of spoken language, and de- scribed a case of a patient called ‘Tan’ because that was the only word he used, helping himself out with various gestures. He had no paralysis, and seemed to understand what was said to him. The posterior half of the second and third left frontal convolutions of the left hemisphere was the seat of the organic lesion. In the same year a quite similar case of a man with only such scraps of words as ‘oui,’ ‘no,’ etc., but with mental and motor powers intact, showed in the autopsy a definite lesion in the third frontal convolution of the left side of the brain. These remarkable cases drew attention to diseases of this kind; and in the end of 1863, eleven cases were on record in which the power of vocal speech was almost or entirely lost, the common anatomical element of each of which was a lesion in the posterior third of the third frontal convolution of the left hemisphere. Broca called this condi- tion ‘aphemia,’ and gave as its symptoms the loss of the power to express ideas by vocal movements without any motor paralysis or mental impairment. He concluded that memory was not a single 1 Abstract of an address delivered before the Anthropological} Society at Paris by M. Mathias Duval, Revue Sczentifigue, Dec. 17, 1887. JANUARY 27, 1888. ] faculty, but that the memory of each kind of mental acquisition was separately organized, and that the cerebral seat of the memory for motor speech-signs was in the third frontal convolution of the left half of the brain. The most startling fact about this discovery was the association of the malady with a lesion in the left half of the brain only. Broca explained this by taking into consideration that we were all organized with a preferred side of the body, and that to be right-handed means nothing else than to have one’s best-devel- oped motor centres in the left half of the brain, inasmuch as the fibres cross over in their descent from brain to muscles. In the same way our speech-movements get associated with the left hemi- sphere; and in left-handed persons the reverse condition may be expected to occur, and has since been found. Trousseau substituted the word ‘aphasia ’ for the disease, leaving Broca’s term to denote that particular form of it which he brought to notice: for it was soon afterwards observed that with the loss of speech sometimes went the loss of writing as well, and sometimes not; that, again, the power to write may be lost, and that of speech retained. Other patients could speak and write, but not read; and others, again, could read, but not speak or write. A complexity of symptoms variously combined have arisen in which order is now to be put. Four types can be distinguished :— First Type.—In describing such types, it should be noted, gen- eral and typical symptoms alone can be noticed. The patient, per- haps as a sequence to an apoplectic stroke, sinks into a condition apt to be mistaken for a condition of deafness and idiocy; but careful observation soon shows that he is sensitive to noises, such as the opening of a door, and even hears the sounds of the human voice. Inferring that he is spoken to, he may attempt to answer, but will say something entirely irrelevant. Gradually appreciating that he is not speaking to the point, he may with some impatience ask you why he cannot understand what you say. He thus shows his ability to express his thoughts, to hear perfectly, and, besides, he reads and writes, plays chess, and is able to do every thing but understand spoken words. Your speech is as an unknown language to him, — just so much sound. What he has lost is the power to get meaning out of sounds; the slowly acquired associa- tions between the word-sound and the idea are broken down; his memory for word-meanings is lost. He is not deaf to sounds, but deaf to words, —a ‘verbal deafness,’ as it is called. We have thus a memory for the meaning of the sounds of words, having its centre in the first temporal convolution of the left half of the brain, and losing its function when that region suffers degeneration. Second Type.— Here, again, the cause may be an apoplectic stroke, which, after the immediate effects have passed off, leaves the patient in an apparently normal condition. He may prepare to attend to his business affairs; will perhaps sit down to write a let- ter; does so, and, remembering that he omitted something, takes the letter out to read it again. To his surprise, he cannot do so. He takes out his account-books, and finds he cannot read them; he picks up the newspaper, and again it says nothing to him. This patient hears, understands, and speaks: he is not aphemic in Broca’s sense. Moreover, he can write; but his writing shows that it was written as though writing in the dark, guided by the muscle-feelings of the hand alone. He cannot read what he has just written, nor can he write from copy. His own name, that has been well impressed upon his motor centres, he writes very well, but he cannot read it. A book or a manuscript is to him as though it were written in Chinese. The disease here, then, is in the loss of the memory for the visual word-signs: the patient is not blind, but ‘word-blind.’ The remembrance of the forms of letters as re- tained by the movements executed in making them is intact, the lesion being a purely visual one. The brain lesion in such cases is quite definitely made out. It is in the second parietal convolution or inferior parietal lobule, behind and above the lesion in word- deafness, and, like it, is confined to the left hemisphere. Third Type.— Here the patient can speak, can read manuscript or print, but he cannot write. He takes the pen in hand to write a word, knows what he ought to write, how it would look if written, but he cannot write it. He has lost the memory of the movements necessary to form the letters. The association between the move- ments made in writing and the word has been lost. He is not word-blind or word-deaf, but the motor word-sense is defective: SCIENCE. 43 he is ‘agraphic,’ as the term goes. A more careful observation shows how closely his malady is limited to this loss. He can use his hands dexterously for all other purposes; he can even draw and copy from a drawing. He can in this way copy script or print, but he draws the letters slowly, as we would copy a Chinese word. We see, then, that the auditory, the visual, and the motor elements of the word are to some extent independent, and that the memory for one of these may be lost while the others are retained. We may expect to find a localization for the motor defect, as for the others; but, owing to the fact that the disease seldom occurs with- out other complications, the localization is not as certain. Yet the bulk of the evidence points to the posterior portion of the second frontal convolution as the centre disturbed in aphasia. The lesion is again confined to the left half of the brain, and, to complete the connection of this with the phenomena of right-handedness, such patients can learn to write with the left hand by submitting them- selves to a process similar to that gone through with in learning to write in youth. They thus cultivate the right hemisphere of the brain. Fourth Type.— This is the type described by Broca as aphemia, and now called motor aphasia. The loss here is the link between the idea and the appropriate movements of tongue, etc., necessary to make the sounds of words. Often the patient retains a few phrases used on’ all occasions: in one case it was ‘ cousisi,’ in an- other ‘monomomentif.’ The poet Baudelaire, when thus affected, would constantly say ‘cré nom.’ Here the power of hearing and understanding is retained, writing and reading are intact, and speaking alone has dropped out. The lesion is in the third frontal convolution, mainly the posterior portion, of the left side of the brain. These pathological states suggest that individual differences with regard to the prominence of these several word-memories in our minds should be discoverable, and that the brain-centre corre- sponding to the preferred memory should be more highly developed than the others. It has often been observed that to many persons the eye is the chief avenue of knowledge. Extreme instances of this faculty, such as artists copying portraits from memory, and calculators doing their work upon an imaginary blackboard, are well known; but, confining ourselves to the memory for written or printed words, we find an excellent type of this faculty in a case recorded by Charcot. A gentleman of great culture and experience had the power of reading pages of his favorite authors from the visual images of the printed page. Two or three readings of a pas- sage were sufficient to fix it in his memory. If he wanted a letter in a voluminous correspondence, he at once thought of its appear- ance; and so, too, with regard to all visual experiences in general. For music and other auditory occupations he had no taste. The importance of the case is doubled by the fact that through disease this faculty was lost, and he had to resort to his auditory memory, and cultivate it by having things read to him, and in other ways. He could not remember what he had seen, be it words or other objects ; and, in short, from being a ‘visual-worded’ and ‘visual- minded’ man, he was forced to become an ‘auditory-worded ’ and ‘auditory-minded’ one. This type of mind is common, and many persons have the habit of seeing the picture of the page from which they quote, the appearance of their manuscript, and so on. Un- fortunately we have no autopsies of normal persons who had been marked cases of this type, to see whether in them the second pari- etal convolution was especially developed. Passing to the auditory , type of mind, one could again easily find extreme cases, and note many instances in which what is heard, and especially in words, is most readily and deeply impressed. Persons to whom writing is easier than speaking, whose thoughts flow off the end of their pens and not of their mouths, may be classed among the ‘ graphic- motor’ type. Deaf-mutes are apt to develop this faculty in another direction, and think in terms of hand-movements. There remains the ‘motor-verbal’ type. Stricker describes himself as of this type, and tells how he thinks in terms of the muscle-feelings in the or- gans of articulation. Such persons talk to themselves when they think, and are well represented by a character in a French tale, who could not compose unless imagining himself formally deliver- ing what he was dictating. Unlike the other cases, there is here some anatomical corroboration; anda collection of the brains of 44 SCIENCE. lawyers, statesmen, and others, all celebrated for the fluency of their speech, shows a surprisingly large development of the third frontal convolution of the left hemisphere. The brain of Gambetta is a marked instance of the same fact. Here this convolution is so highly developed that it is actually doubled by a slight fissure in the middle, no trace of this development being found on the right side. What is above described includes merely what is most surely and definitely known, —a vast field for future research remains open, and even now enigmas are waiting to be answered. That certain aphasic patients are unable to count, and others do so normally ; that some can tell time, distinguish the beats, but cannot count; and so on, —are facts as yet without meaning. So, too, the loss of the power to express one’s self in gestures, and to use the ordi- nary conventionalities of life, may some day find a definite cerebral localization. Sometimes only certain kinds of signs are lost, and the rest retained ; sometimes the patient can talk only by singing. All these facts may, in the science of the future, be as definitely ex- plored as the main types of aphasia are to-day. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HANDWRITING. — In the Worth Amerz- can Review for January, the editor, Mr. Rice, prints a series of the autographs of Napoleon, written at various epochs in his eventful life. Starting in his earlier years with a bold and clear signature, it retains most of these characteristics in the days of his greatest successes ; but parallel with the declining fortunes of the great man, is a degeneration of his autograph, until at the end we have noth- ing more than the rudest, characterless scrawl. The autographs cannot but suggest the ravaging changes in the nervous system that were the physiological concomitant of the turmoil raging in the hero’s mind. HEALTH MATTERS. Foot-and-Mouth Disease, and its Relations to Human Scarlatina as a Prophylactic. AT a recent meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. J. W. Stickler of Orange, N.J., read a paper entitled ‘Foot-and- Mouth Disease as it affects Man and Animals, and its Relation to Human Scarlatina as a Prophylactic.’ He said that it had long been known that foot-and-mouth disease could be communicated from animals to man through the milk of the affected animals, and by the introduction of the virus into wounds. Whenhuman beings are the subjects of this disease, the glands become enlarged, vesicles appear in the mouth and upon the hands and feet, and in some cases an eruption which resembles that of scarlet-fever. Hert- wig and others, who purposely contracted the disease by drinking infected milk, were affected in this way. In 1884 there was an epidemic of sore throat, together with glandular enlargements and vesicles, in Dover, England. Upon investigation it was shown that it was due to the drinking of milk from animals sick with foot- and-mouth disease. Two years after this, an investigation was made in one hundred and eighty-two of the cases which had suf- fered from the sore throat in 1884. None of them had since had scarlet-fever, and from other points in their history it appeared that they had been rendered insusceptible to that disease. Dr. Stickler had himself inoculated three children with virus from milch-cows, and subsequently exposed them to scarlet-fever. One of these, after having fully recovered from the inoculation, was taken to the _ bedside of a scarlet-fever patient, and inhaled the latter’s breath, and placed his head upon the pillow of the sick one. The child did not contract the fever. Two other children, similarly inoculated and similarly exposed, have not contracted the disease. In con- cluding his paper, Dr. Stickler said, that, while it was by no means proven that scarlet-fever could be prevented by such inoculations, the results thus far obtained were very suggestive, and proposed to continue his investigation. In the discussion which followed the reading of the paper, Pro- fessor Law of Cornell University said that he was sceptical as to the prophylactic value of these inoculations against scarlet-fever. In Great Britain there were frequent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease, affecting cattle and the persons who came in contact with them, and, if it was a protective disease against scarlet-fever, he thought the latter should be much less prevalent than it was. He [VoLt. XI. No. 260 had himself been over and over again exposed to foot-and-mouth disease, but had never suffered, while, on the first exposure to scarlet-fever, he contracted it; his system being susceptible to the one, and not to the other. He thought it would be dangerous to investigate this subject very much in the United States, as it would be a very serious matter if the foot-and-mouth disease should be introduced among American cattle. He also feared that scarlet- fever might be more widely disseminated if these inoculations were to be made general. While he had great respect for Pasteur, he could not help believing that he had increased the spread of an- thrax by scattering abroad his modified anthrax virus, as, under favorable conditions, this weakened virus might become potent and dangerous. He considered it a fact that there had been more rabies in England since Pasteur’s discovery than before; and the same danger existed in the attenuated virus of rabies as in that of anthrax. Dr. L. McLean of Brooklyn said that there was no such natural disease as bovine scarlatina. If cows contracted the disease, it could only be by inoculation from affected human beings. He did not believe that foot-and-mouth disease was prophylactic of scarlet- fever. There had been but two outbreaks of foot-and-mouth dis- ease in this country, —one in Maine; and one in the vicinity of New York City, extending up the Hudson as far as Poughkeepsie. Dr. J. Lewis Smith said, “ Since the time of Jenner the hope has been awakened that some of the other fatal infectious diseases, and especially scarlet-fever, might be prevented, as small-pox has been, by the substitution of a milder and modified disease, derived from the lower animals. As regards scarlet-fever, two propositions of great interest and importance have arisen: first, is there a disease in the bovine race which is true scarlet-fever, or which communi- cates genuine scarlet-fever to man? and, second, if there be such a disease, does it produce a mild and modified form of scarlet-fever in man? Many instances have been recorded in the last five or six years in which epidemics of scarlet-fever have arisen from the use of milk furnished by healthy cows, and infected with the scarlatin- ous germ after the milking ; but in the St. Marylebone and Hendon epidemic, occurring two years ago, and described in the Arztzsh Medical Journal, May 20, 1886, the outbreak of scarlet-fever ap- peared to be clearly traced to diseased cows. Now, the point to which I wish to call attention is this. The sickness of the cows was mild, not appreciably impairing their appetite, nor diminishing their milk, but the disease which the use of the infected milk pro- duced is described as an ‘intense outbreak of scarlet-fever.’ In- stead of a mild disease being propagated from the cow, for which we are looking and hoping, the reverse occurred. A mild form of the disease in the cow produced a severe one in man; so that it appears from the history of this epidemic, that, by inoculating with the bovine scarlatinous virus, we might produce severe and fatal epidemics, instead of a mild and modified form of the disease.” Dr. Stickler closed the discussion by saying, that, if he produced only a slight and harmless attack of scarlatina by his inoculations, he could see no objection to the use of the scarlatinal virus for this purpose ; and, when the terrible effects of the unmodified disease were taken into consideration, he thought it of extreme importance that a method of protection should be secured if possible. As to the disease from which the Hendon cows suffered, it had, he thought, been clearly demonstrated that it was nothing else than scarlatina, since it was precisely the same affection as was ordina- rily produced in cows by the inoculation of scarlatinal virus from the human subject. THE BACILLUS OF CANCER.—Dr. Horatio R. Bigelow, in a letter from Berlin to the Boston Medicaland Surgical Journal, ex- presses his conviction that Scheurlen has discovered the bacillus of cancer. This discovery is confirmed by S. Guttmann and Stab- sartz Schill. In every case of cancer which Scheurlen has ex- amined, he has found the bacillus. Dr. Bigelow believes that there is a bacillus of cancer just as really and absolutely as there is one of consumption. Its morphological characteristics are not yet clearly defined, and there are many other doubts to clear up and questions to answer; but all of this can come only after many months of hard and patient labor. At a recent meeting of the Berlin Society of Internal Medicine this discovery of Scheurlen was discussed. Fraenkel regarded the methods employed by oAran6 ~ ; Se KS . ac nopolj SS ~ Altambra, et SS Potenzac S ie da bP ext e Kechkemers ; Duha Foldwa] ; dees e bs, iro at Satete illppopoliv ot asnelsesuile 4 E. RUMELI4 RAVAN - 2S Con: ae eae Vg eS INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES. GREEK. ILLYRIAN, ROMANIC (IVALIAN AND: ROUMENIAN)| SLAVIC. SERVIAN ~ BULGARIAN. SLOVAK. RUSSIAN AND RUSNIAK. GERMANIC. GERMAN TURANIAN LANGUAGES. UUNGARIAN. — TURKISH. SCALE 1775 00,000 =a. Thebes o> al j MMe f pee mee 4 Saeed Ethnological Map of Southeastern Europe. According to H. Kiepert. SCIENCE, january 27, 1888. No. 260. ie a J January 27, 1 888. | ‘Scheurlen as defective. From the reports of this meeting it would appear that but few of the leading men of Germany are yet ready to accept Scheurlen’s claims as established. BOOK-REVIEWS. Lectures on Bacterza. By A.DE BARY. 2d ed. Tr. by Henry E. F. Garnsey and Isaac Bayley Balfour. Oxford, Clarendon ihe GPL NSO) THIS is an excellent translation of De Bary’s ‘ Vorlesungen ueber Bacterien,’ with a considerable number of notes in an appendix. For one who wishes a good readable account of the nature and action of bacteria, not too long or too full of technical details, this moderate-sized and well-arranged volume answers the purpose ad- mirably. The Children: How to Study Them. M.D. London, Francis Hodgson. THIs little volume contains half a dozen lectures, delivered by request of the Froebel Society of London, by Dr. Warner, whose works on the anatomy of movement and on physical expression are widely known. The object of the lectures is to impress upon teachers and parents the necessity and importance of the scientific observation of children. The plea is admirably and emphatically urged. On the practical side there is an attempt to give a number of indications by which the physiological health and growth of children can be observed. Though these are doubtlessly useful, and when made bya skilled observer valuable, yet they are too vaguely stated to. be generally applicable. A table of printed questions, with directions as to their use, would be a much safer and By FRANCIS WARNER, 2a more useful compend to put into the hand of the ordinary teacher. ° Dr. Warner sketches the anatomy of the parts of the body con- cerned in motion, shows how they are all related to the activity of the brain, and thus become an index of mental strength or weak- ness, and then describes a series of postures of various parts of the body, and especially of the hand, indicative of various temperaments. He lays stress upon the indications of the nervous type of child with the practical object of teaching such children separately, as we do with thedeaf, the blind, and the weak-minded. ‘“ Why, then, are the children of slight brain-defect not specially cared for, children tending to become passionate picking up bad habits and practising them, tending to criminality, or, if too feeble for that, to pauperism ? 5 Now, my argument is, that we can discover such children and pick them out in a school by definite physical signs ; we can point out the children not up to the average, and tending to failure from want of brain-power.” This series of lectures adds to the number of indications of the time when we shall have definite knowledge of the physical and mental traits of children by which their healthy education may be guided, and their evil tendencies avoided. Annual Report of the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania for 1886. Parts I. and II. Harrisburg, Geol. Surv. 8°. ALTHOUGH Professor Lesley’s staff is now quite small, this re- port adds four volumes to the imposing series already published by the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania. Many of these nu- merous volumes, although possessing a local interest and value as aids in economic developments, are, from the scientific point of view, simply masses of facts awaiting generalization; and it is to be hoped that the long-promised final report which is to co-ordinate these multitudinous data will soon begin to appear. Only the first two volumes of the report for 1886 have been re- ceived. These are crowded with details of the development and production of coal, oil, and gas, but are rather deficient in features of more than local interest not previously published ; and, since the data are largely of a statistical nature, even their local value must be diminished by tardy publication. The first volume contains the report, by Mr. E. V. d'Invilliers, on the re-survey of the Pittsburg coal-region. It is largely a sum- mary, in one volume, of the surveyssmade a decade since by Professor Stevenson, Mr. White, and others. It is accompanied, however, by a new geological map of south-western Pennsylvania. Special attention is given to the principal commercial coal of the region, — the great Pittsburg bed. Its outcrop is determined horizontally SCIENCE. 45 and vertically more accurately than ever before; and the historical and statistical facts bearing upon its development, the structural lines affecting its position for mining ; the stratigraphical features of the coal-measure systems above and below it; and the methods most in use for mining and transporting its product to market, —are exhibited in all desirable fulness and detail. It is easy to see that this report must prove of great practical utility to the coal-operators of the region; and the elevations above tide of the outcrop of the Pittsburg coal-bed will be useful to oil and gas prospectors in giv- ing them a basis from which to estimate the depth to be drilled in order to reach the geological horizons of the different oil and gas sands. This report is supplemented by two important contributions on Pennsylvania bituminous coal mining by Mr. A. N. Humphreys and Mr. Selwyn Taylor, and is also accompanied by a memoir by the eminent and venerable paleo-botanist, Leo Lesquereux, on the character and distribution of paleozoic plants. The second volume consists chiefly of Mr. Carll’s report on the oil and gas regions. The history of development is the most com- plete yet published, and gives the reader a good general idea of the successive steps by which the petroleum industry has advanced from the primitive skimming of an oil-spring with a piece of bark and the restricted use of the material to medicinal purposes, to the drilling of wells three thousand feet deep, the pumping of oil over mountain and valley to the seaboard, and the flooding of the world with an inexpensive illuminant. The ancient pits or shallow wells which are found all over the oil-region, and which were undoubt- edly dug to obtain oil, are discussed at some length; and the con- clusion is reached that these early oil operations are due, not to the Indians, or French, or early white settlers, but to some primitive dwellers on the soil, who have long since passed away. Short chapters on the geographic and topographic distribution of oil and gas, on the structure and stratigraphy of the productive horizons, and on the developments during 1886, are followed by a long and monotonous series of well-records, which constitute the principal part of the report. The volume concludes with a memoir on the chemical composition of natural gas by Professor Phillips, and the extended bibliography of petroleum. Unfinished Worlds: a Study tn Astronomy. By S. H. PARKES. New York, Pott. $1.50. THIS book is intended for general readers, especially those in early life, whose ideas of the province and achievements of science are generally in excess of the sober teachings of actual experience. In this we quote from the author, and, while we are ready to agree with him to a large extent, yet we feel that just as the knowledge of Columbus seemed wonderful and awe-inspiring to his crews when he predicted the coming of an eclipse, so to us appear star- tling the little scraps of informatian our new instruments are giving us of the constitution of the celestial bodies. The old astronomy busied itself with the movements, the new astronomy with the physical constitution, of the sun, the stars, the planets, and comets. While it is true that for many of us the interest in the old astron- omy began to wane, the results already achieved in this new field are so novel that we may be pardoned if we are apt to exaggerate their magnitude. Mr. Parkes’s book has for its main purpose the bringing-out clearly of the changing nature of the bodies filling space, and sketches the information we have of nebule, stars, the sun, the earth, the planets, and comets. All this is well done. The book closes with a vészzé of the different cosmic theories. 2 NOTES AND NEWS. THE January number of the Revue Phzlosophigue, edited by Felix Alcan, contains articles by A. Espinas on the mental evolu- tion of animals, by F. Paulhan on associationalism and psychi- cal synthesis, and by Adam on Pascal and Descartes. Besides this, reviews and része7zés of new publications are given. — Prof. J. J. Egli of Zurich, Switzerland, who writes the biennial reports of new researches on geographical names for Wagner's annual report on the progress of geography, publishes a circular letter in which he requests authors and publishers to send him copies, or, when such is not possible, titles, of publications and of notes or papers in journals or books referring to the subject of goe- 46 graphical names, their meaning, origin, derivation, etc. As it is desirable that the annual reports should be as complete as possible, and as a large amount of material is scattered through American journals, and particularly through the publications of the State sur- veys and historical societies, which are difficult of access in Europe, American authors can materially help Professor Egli by sending him copies, or at least the titles, of their remarks bearing on this subject. — Last autumn an attempt was made, says /Vature, to bring live cod from Iceland to Norway on board smacks, and six thousand fish were brought over to Bergen successfully. Here, however, many of them died, on account of the basin in which they were kept until the sale could be effected being too small. This year fresh attempts will be made. — Dr. Asa Gray has been seriously ill for some weeks. — The second meeting of the International Copyright Associa- tion was held in Boston, Jan. 24, President Eliot in the chair. Sec- retary Estes announced that satisfactory progress had been made in the movement to obtain the recognition of authors’ rights in their literary work. A resolution was adopted approving the prin- ciple involved in the amendments of the Chase Copyright Bill pro- posed by the executive committee of the American Copyright League and the American Publishers’ Copyright League, and re- questing Senator Chase to adopt these amendments, with such verbal changes as may be recommended by the council of this association and adopted by the committees mentioned. A resolu- tion was also passed asking the chairman to appoint a sub-com- mittee to confer with Senator Chase regarding these amendments. After a general discussion, in which Messrs. Houghton, Scudder, Ticknor, Ernst Lothrop, and others participated, the meeting ad- journed. — Nature comments on French architects as seeming to attend to the decorative rather than the useful parts of the buildings they design. The architect who designed the new medical school in Paris took so little pains about the distribution of the water-pipes, that in very cold weather the laboratories (chemistry, physiology, bacteriology, experimental pathology, etc.) are wholly deprived of water. Recently the water in all the pipes was frozen, so that not a drop of water was available in a single laboratory. Of course, every one connected with the school complains that work under such conditions is nearly impossible. The new Sorbonne will be a handsome building, but, unfortunately, the work is soon to be stopped owing to lack of money. The ornamental part of the building is finished, but the useful part has not yet been begun. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *.* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. in all cases required as proof of good faith. Twenty copies of the number containing his communication will be furnished free to any correspondent on request. The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. The writer's name ts The Snow-Snake. IN a letter (Sczence, xi. No. 259) pointing out certain errors in an article on Pocahontas, referring especially to two games mentioned therein, Dr. Beauchamp says, “ The children indoors were playing at gus-ha'-ch (or ‘ peach-pits’), it is said; but where the peaches came from at that early day is not explained.” Yet the doctor fails to give us a hint as to the true rendering of this word, and the proper name of this game. This game was played generally with ‘plum-pits,’ though sometimes with small pebbles, etc. ; but, as the pits were more convenient and symmetrical, they were preferred, and, being used in most cases, they gave their name to the game, namely, ‘plum-pits,’ or, better, ‘ pit-betting.’ In regard to the use of the snow-snake among Powhatanic tribes, Dr. Beauchamp remarks that “it is not wise to place a Northern game so far South,” evidently wholly oblivious of the fact that ‘betting’ with the w-¢rd-hwéa’-1é (*snow-snake’) was a favorite outdoor sport of the Carolinian and Virginian tribes of Iroquois, — too important offshoots of the family to be overlooked, — and who SCIENCE. [Vot. XI. No. 260 were situated farther South than the Powhatans. The doctor should have omitted the 7 in his orthography of the word £a- wher'-ta (kd-whe'-ta), as it does not occur in the speech of the Onondagas of the present time. J. N. B. HEwITvT. Washington, D.C., Jan. 23. The ‘Act of God’ Once More. Mr. W. W. Nevin’s interesting note (Sczence, Dec. 2) as to the Mexican doctrine of ‘fuerza mayor’ emphasizes my point. The Roman law having always been, as it still is, the law of continental Europe, it was inevitable that such American colonies as were settled from the continent should retain the doctrine of the ‘act of God,’ and that when the Spanish brought it to Mexico, and im- planted it in a community saturated with superstition, it should have augmented quite as rapidly as its adumbration has waned with us, until even so anticipated an occurrence as the flooding of a river in a rainy season should relieve from the obligation of a contract. But United States capital and energy are speedily civilizing Mexico by building railroads within her territory, and doubtless we may expect a very considerable attenuation of the doctrine at no distant day. Ido not think all of Sczexce’s correspondents share in the good faith of Mr. Nevin. It does not impress me, for example, as in good faith that one of them asks (Sczence, Nov. 25) whether, had a certain car-stove he specifies upset ana ignited a certain train, it would have been an ‘act of God;’ or that another (Sczence, Dec. 16) demands whether I propose that the railways of this Re- public be operated by Mexican law. But in good faith, neverthe- less, will I answer both these questions. Up to the date of the latest of the five accidents I specified, no practicable means of heat- ing cars had been invented except car-stoves. Steam-pipes from the engine had, indeed, been proposed for twenty years, but no coupler-joint had been perfected, and no means of keeping the steam from cooling, sufficient to overcome the extreme coolable surface of a pipe serving long trains in the severe weather of the mountains, or the low temperatures of the North and North-west, devised. At present, however (stimulated, in fact, by the very cas- ualties I specified at Republic and White River), there are certainly three or four of these contrivances which have been tested and found practicable. Therefore, had your correspondent’s stove overturned and partially roasted him, he would certainly have been deprived of the opportunity of asserting that he had been roasted by an ‘act of God,’ since the company could have availed itself of that particular progress of applied science which had invented a heating apparatus which in case of accidents would not induce combustion of the train. As to the second question, I say, No, and Yes. I proposed no Mexican laws for regulation of our own railroads, but I did question whether an already well-known rule of law limiting the responsibility of the employer for mental conditions of the employee was entirely without bearing upon a certain state of admitted facts. The common law expressly de- clares that there are possible conditions of an employee’s mind which discharge the employer. An employee who, in ejecting tres- passers, becomes vindictive, passionate, or wilful, and on that ac- count employs a surplusage of force, so acts at his own and not at his employer’s peril. I therefore suggested a question whether an entirely unforeseen and instantaneous absence of mind on an em- ployee’s part was any more within his employer's control than a burst of passion. Again: it seems immaterial to my point that different investi- gators, tribunals, or commissions may receive different reports of the causes directly forwarding a casualty. A question of pre- cedence between parallel proximate causes is always an exceed- ingly nice one. Indeed, the only report of a railway accident likely to be substantially unreliable is the newspaper report ; and this not necessarily because the newspaper is biassed against the company, but simply because newspapers are at the mercy of their reporters, precisely as railway companies are at the mercy of their employees. The reporter first on the ground takes the impressions of the by- standers, and reconciles them somehow out of his inner conscious- ness. The only persons present who possess the slightest actual knowledge as to the why and wherefore of the catastrophe are the employees of the company, and they are silent. They have their January 27, 1888.] duties none the less rigid in case of accident than when all goes well, and are at their posts, saving life and property, and prevent- ing further destruction by signals, and have neither the time nor the right to instruct reporters ; though, I may add, their silence is always taken as a final confession of guilt on the part of the company. Indeed, on reading the average American newspaper accounts of railway disasters, I have repeatedly found myself exclaiming, “ Why did not this dastardly and murderous company complete the cata- logue of its crimes by braining the survivors with crowbars, and adding to its ill-gotten wealth by impartially pillaging the dead bodies of all its victims?’’ I once had occasion to investigate an accident which derailed a way-train, throwing it over the double track and immediately before an express-train coming in the oppo- site direction, almost exactly upon the time when the express-train was due at the point where the derailment occurred. Upon the trial of a resulting lawsuit, the crew of the wrecked train testified unani- mously to the fact: the company’s time-table and the registers of the train-despatchers at both ends of the division (which could not have been disturbed without throwing the whole business of the road into chaos) proved it. But some passengers whom the unusual sensation of escaping from destruction had unnerved, and to whom aseries of crowded and unique experiences had made a few moments seem like hours, testified that there had been ample time to flag the express-train (some of them putting the interval at several hours) ; and the jury unanimously believed the passengers as against the company’s witnesses, and thus morally convicted the employees of perjuring themselves under orders, in order to mulct a corporation in damages. Juries from the interior do these things as regularly as the opportunities present themselves ; and the excuse lies, not in the opportunity, but in the nature of things, and in the axiom that ‘bigotry’ and ‘ignorance’ are synonymous terms. But unfortu- nately there is no such palliation or excuse for the ready writers and composers of leaders on the staff of our great newspapers : for these are cultivated gentlemen, who know perfectly well that railway cor- porations avoid accidents as they avoid bankruptcy, and enforce a ceaseless and enlightened vigilance to prevent them; that railway companies do not practise small economies, do not risk bankruptcy (for a single great accident, like that at Revere, may bankrupt, as that one actually bankrupted, an entire corporation) for the sake of a few dollars, yet, knowing this, persist in telling the public that railways are careless of public rights, and indifferent to human life. To be sure, these gentlemen do not second the religious press in advising that locomotive-engineers and East River pilots read their Bibles when on duty, — a habit which would doubtless largely in- crease the perils of steam-transportation ; but they often, as we shall see, make suggestions quite as invaluable. On the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 20, 1887, there was zot a bloody and terrible disaster on the Elevated Railroad in this city. A train packed with human beings was wo¢ precipitated into a narrow street below, crowded with men, women, and children; horses, trucks, and vans. The wheels of a particular train, upon that oc- casion, left the track, but the prudence and skill of the builders of the elevated structure vindicated themselves: the jar never de- flected it an atom, the stout sleepers held the train, and nobody was scratched. But no one, on reading the leaders printed in the daily newspapers of this city, would have supposed thata terrible calam- ity had been averted. Had that entire train, full of human beings, been precipitated upon these passing men and women, horses, trucks, and vans, the daily newspapers could not have censured the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company more emphatically than they did; or drawn for the occasion more vigorous and virtuous lessons of the greed of railway corporations, and of the woes of a long-suffering public. While every practical railway man in the country must have admired the perfect and almost automatic con- struction which saved so much waste of life and property on that occasion, not a newspaper commended the management, but rather took an additional opportunity of vilifying railroads in general, and the Manhattan Railway Company in particular. I did not read all the eloquent leaders with which the press improved the occasion of the non-occurrence of an appalling disaster on the New York Ele- vated Railroad; but I remember one, that, after feelingly dilating on the ghastly picture of gore and agony which was zo¢ presented on that occasion, exclaimed, — SCIENCE: 47 “ We inust require of those who undertake such responsibilities absolute security, not a pretty tolerable degree of safety. It is not enough that accidents shall not be frequent: they must be impos- sible. The system must be managed on the principle that there are no railroad accidents; that what are called such are due to some species of neglect, which truly competent management could and would have prevented” (Commerctal Advertiser, Dec. 22, 1887). If the gentleman who wrote those words will continue to. walk uprightly and piously before men unto his life’s end, will read his catechism and endeavor to reflect its precepts in his daily gait and conversation, he will doubtless eventually proceed to a vicinage beyond this fitful fever of life where accidents are ‘impossible.’ I doubt if he finds it upon this poor planet. But, although perfectly innocuous to those as clever as himself, is. it not manufacturing a dangerous public sentiment — and one as unpatriotic as it is dan- gerous — to constantly kindle and fan the impression, that, of all the necessary industries which civilization requires, the industry of maintaining a railway, or any thing that runs by steam, is a greedy and despotic power, that lives by crushing not only the bones of passengers, but the civil liberties of the people? If it is, and if it is wrong to do dangerous and unpatriotic deeds, then the gentlemen who write these feverish and furious leaders — unless they repent — will certainly never behold the land where no accidents happen. I may add, perhaps, as germane to my text, that the newspapers all appear to agree, that, if nobody was killed the other evening at Franklin Street, it was not the fault of the Manhattan Elevated Railway Company, but a genuine ‘act of God.’ “Tn a recent number of Sczezce,” says the Evenzng Post, “ Mr. Appleton Morgan has published an article, entitled ‘The Act of God and the Railway Company,’ in which he tries to palliate or even to deny the responsibility of the corporations for. most of the serious railroad accidents of the past year. We have of late become quite accustomed to such pleas on behalf of the Anarchists; but when the same line of argument is invoked in favor of a railway company, by a lawyer of Mr. Morgan’s standing, it is a surprise, and by no means a welcome one.” I myself do not see what I have to do with the Anarchists, or the Anarchists with me. An Anarchist is one who intrudes upon the still unsettled problem of labor versus capital, and proposes solving it by eliminating the element of labor, and substituting cataclysm therefor. The idea of cataclysm may have suggested a railway accident, otherwise the Pos?’s correspond- ence of ideas does not impress me as important. Proceeding: the Post is astonished that I should have given an account of the For- est Hill disaster at variance with the official report of the Massa- chusetts Board of Railway Commissioners who investigated it, say- ing, ‘‘ We do not understand how it was possible for a writer of good standing to disregard these facts. Either he must have pre- sumed on the ignorance of his readers, or else he never took the trouble to look into the matter itself. The latter is perhaps the more charitable supposition. But it need hardly be said that for a writer in a scientific periodical either excuse is equally weak.” Doubtless the Pos? did not, at that writing, understand how any- body could prefer the report of experts to the official reports of non- experts upon so complicated an affair as a railway accident. But it ought to have had some glimmering of an idea as to how such a preference was possible, a day or so later, when itself printed prom- inently, and without comment, the following item: “ After a num- ber of weeks spent in the investigation of the Chatsworth train- wreck, the Illinois Railroad and Warehouse Commission has sub- mitted to Governor Oglesby a report stating, that, in their opinion, the ‘train would not have been destroyed if the bridge had not burned before the train reached it.’” Before so masterly an analy- sis of the casuistry of proximate causes, no wonder the vexing Post was speechless. The Illinois Commission found that the Chatsworth disaster would not have happened had the bridge fal- len before the fated train reached it. Their Massachusetts contempo- raries reported, that, had the bridge-inspector been discharged be- fore he reported the bridge safe, the fated train would never have attempted to run over it. I do not, upon the whole, see much to choose between them. As I write, word comes that the Minne- sota Board of Railway Commissioners, as if emulous to compete in usefulness with its compeers of Illinois and Massachusetts, had decreed that no upper berths in Pullman sleeping-coaches must be 48 made up until actually sold to passengers, which would oblige sleepy passengers either to sit up during transit through that intel- ligent commonwealth, or else sleep with entire indifference to the dusky porter and the possible new-comer, and sundry joint opera- tions not, as most of us know, over-conducive to balmy and seduc- tive repose. What, then, we really require is not a new law, or a new custom, or a new statute, but an infallible foresight and judgment. Our newspaper leader-writers are not, unfortunately, the only gentlemen in the country who can prophesy things after they come to pass. There are plenty of gentlemen, equally competent in that regard, now employed upon the railway lines of this continent. If, how- ever, a gentleman could be found with the much rarer gift of prophecy as to things to come before they actually transpire, I im- gine that it would be difficult to name a salary he could not com- mand from a railway company. Indeed, neglect by a railway com- pany to secure the services of such advance prophet ought certainly to be such a negligence as would settle the company’s liability entirely beyond all possible legal inference. There is nothing upon which newspaper comment is more familiar than the well-worn theme of the fallibility of human testimony: even four inspired Evangelists, they tell us, could not agree upon a given state of facts. They press this fallibility against railroad companies. Do they ever press it in their favor? That the average newspaper ‘should experience a difficulty in conceiving that every railway acci- dent was beyond the company’s control does not amaze me; but I admit to some surprise at the following criticism upon my paper, in the Razlroad Gazette, a most valuable and intelligent commentator, usually, upon railway affairs : viz., “ At Republic, he [myself] says the man sent with a red light failed to carry it; no mention is made of the fact that two men failed in their duty to send him. Con- cerning Forest Hill, Mr. Morgan makes the original assertion that no appliance in the company’s power to provide was lacking ; which, perhaps, must be admitted as true, as a competent bridge- engineer (which the company neglected to provide) could not be called an‘ appliance.’” So far from exploding, this appears to me a much stronger putting of my point than I was equal to on the facts as they reached me. According to the Gaze¢¢e, the fault at Republic was not that the one red-light man did not go ahead, but that two officials did not send him. So, not one human brain, but two, failed todo their duty. If, as I argued, a corporation cannot control the deflections of even one human brain, how can it control the deflections, independent and coincident, of two? The fact that one man was absent-minded, I held to be beyond the power of a ‘corporation to prevent. But the utterly unprecedented coincidence of two brains at the same moment, in the same spot, and under the same circumstances, forgetting their duty,— and that duty their identical duty to do identically the same thing, — does really seem to me to be about as nearly an absolute act of God as any case of which most experts could conceive. And, again, supposing that the inspector of bridges of the Boston and Providence Railroad was incompetent: here, again, a human brain was at fault. If it can be shown that the Boston and Providence Company knew him to be incompetent, or had discharged a competent bridge-inspector to deliberately install an incompetent one, that would have been an- other matter. But it does not so appear, neither does it appear that any bridge inspected by this particular bridge-engineer had previous- ly fallen. Speaking of this unfortunate bridge-engineer of the Bos- ton and Providence Railway Company, the Massachusetts Board of Railway Commissioners says, “This man had been in the em- ployment of the corporation for a long series of years, his trade was that of a machinist, he had not been educated as a civil engineer, and the management had abundant reason to know that he was not qualified, and had had no opportunity to qualify himself, to do the work assigned to him with reference to this bridge.” Zygo, had he been discharged prior to the accident, the accident would not have happened. Perhaps not. If a railway company could only foresee accidents, could know in advance just exactly when one of its bridges was going to collapse, doubtless it could avert the dis- aster by discharging the bridge-inspector, so that he could not re- port that bridge secure, so that no train would try to cross it (which would resemble, indeed, the intrepid mariner who warded off a cyclone by collaring the barometer and holding it upside down). SCIENCE: [Vou. XI. No. 260 But, seriously, should our railway companies every now and then discharge their old, tried, and faithful employees — men “ who had been in the employment of the corporation for a long series of years’ — lest they should at some time or other in the future be- come unfortunate, unfaithful, or careless? Perhaps a man not “ educated as a civil engineer ” could not possibly, after having been “in the employment of the corporation for a long series of years,” come to know as much about railway-bridges as if in his youth he had spent a couple of years with a tutor, or ina polytechnic college. Does not the Razlroad Gazette's statement of the causes of the Forest Hill accident exactly carry out my own criticism; namely, that a human brain, trusted and unusually accurate, for once failed to do its work ? APPLETON MORGAN, New York, Jan. 12. The Pronunciation of ‘ Arkansas.’ J. OWEN DorRsEy’s article in Sczence for Jan. 13, re-opening the question of the pronunciation of ‘Arkansas,’ necessitates a few words in reply. I fear that Mr. Dorsey fails to catch the spirit of my plea for the local and historically correct pronunciation, when he dwells upon the various vowel-sounds of a, and accuses me of pleading for ‘consistency’ in the pronunciation of this most inconsistent Anglo-American language of ours. Such an act upon my part would certainly be in opposition to my favorite hobby of observing and collecting data upon the differentiation in orthography, pro- nunciation, and vocabulary, under climatic and industrial condi- tions, of the English language in the United States. The broadening of @ into aw, the Indian origin, and the euphony of the word to foreign ears, are questions of the least import in the pronunciation of the word ‘ Arkansas;’ for the first of these is probably French-Indian or a secondary climatic change visible in hundreds of other words, such as ‘ Wabash,’ ‘ Ouachita,’ ‘ Wau- kesha,’ etc., and which neither Mr. Dorsey nor I, nor any one else, can stop, more than we could put a brake upon any other evolu- tionary biologic or linguistic process. The evil effect that would follow the use of individual choice in the euphonious pronunciation of geographic terms is self-evident ; and, since these Indians had no phonetic method of recording their tribal names, we must seek the approximately correct pronunciation of the word ‘ Arkansas’ in the French language, in which it was first phonetically recorded. Surely, Mr. Dorsey cannot find there any authority for the pronun- ciation of the final syllable ‘saas,’ or omission of the final s. Certainly none of the examples given by him would authorize this, nor any of the following historical methods of spelling the word, which Mr. Dorsey seems to have overlooked: Joliet (1672), ‘Kansa;’ Hennepin’s map (Utrecht, 1697), ‘ A Kansa;’ Dumont de Montigny’s map (1753), ‘Arcancas;’ Le Page du Pratz (1758), ‘ Arcancas;’ and many other later French writers, ‘ Arkansas;’ all of which, in good French, can only be pronounced ‘ Arkansa.’ I think no further examples are necessary to show that the original French pronunciation was much nearer ‘-sa’ or ‘-saw’ than “saas.’ But this is only one, and the least, of the many reasons why the local pronunciation should be preserved. The present territory of the State of Arkansas was first settled by a colony of Frenchmen, sent out by the celebrated financier, John Law, about the year 1720, They settled in the country of the ‘ Arkansas’ Indians at Arcansas Post, around which their descendants have lived until the present day, and which was the nucleus of all the early Anglo-American migrations into Arkansas, and from whom they got their pronun- ciation of the French geographic nomenclature. These people still pronounce the word ‘Arkans@’ and ‘ Arkansaw.’ They can see neither logic nor reason in ‘Arkansaas.’ Nor are they to be blamed that they memorialized the Legislature of the State through the Historical Society of Arkansas a few years since, when exasperated by the attempts of foreign euphonists to force the “saas’ pronunciation upon them, and to ridicule the only historical and phonetically correct pronunciation of the word, to set the mat- ter at rest by legalizing the old pronunciation of the word, which was done by an almost unanimous resolution of the State Senate. Have the customs and rights of the millions of Anglo-American and French-American pioneers and descendants in this region no JANUARY 27, 1888.] voice in the matter of the local nomenclature? Suppose that they, for the sake of euphony, should say that ‘Worcester’ (Mass.) should be pronounced ‘Wor-ces-ter, or ‘Tehuacana’ (Tex.) ‘Tee-hu-a-can-a,’ or ‘San José’ (Cal.) ‘ Saint Jo,’ etc. : they would be termed ridiculous. If Anglo-Americans should agree to aban- don the original pronunciation of all the French and Spanish spelled geographic terms of the South-west, I would agree with Mr. Dorsey, ‘that, when the regular Indian pronunciation cannot be maintained, let us use one that is euphonic English;” but as long as we pronounce the final syllable of the following partial list of French-American denominatives ‘a’ or ‘aw,’ all of which had the same origin and belong to the same category as ‘ Arkan- sas,’ I shall oppose the singling-out of the latter word for euphonic experimentation: Attakapas, Tensas, Arkansas, Opelousas, Qua- paw! (Kapas), Chickasaw! (Chickachas, Tchicachas). Now, let us drop the word ‘ Arkansas’ for the present, and take a look into the pronunciation of the geographic nomenclature of the western United States, which had its origin in the romance-speak- ing people, and its modifications by the Anglo-Saxon migrants, and lexicographers. Mr. Swinburne has given some fine illustrations ofthis in his able article ‘The Bucolic Dialect of the Plains,’ in a recent number of Scrzbner’s Magazzne ; but there some general laws can be drawn from my observations in the Upper and Lower Mississippi valley, which I think are worthy of consideration. They are as follows : — (1) In the north-west, the Latin-American geographic names, or Indian names spelled in the Latin languages, are generally spelled correctly by Anglo-Americans, but often mispronounced. Ex- amples: ‘Terre Haute,’ ‘ Detroit,’ ‘Versailles,’ ‘ Kansas,’ ‘ Vin- cennes, etc. (2) Latin-American names of the south-west, or Indian names spelled in Latin languages, are often wrongly spelled by Anglo- Americans, but usually pronounced with approximate correctness. Examples: ‘Bosque’ (‘Basque’), ‘Turn Wall’ (rare) (‘Terre Noir’), ‘Low Freight’ (‘L’Eau Frais’), ‘Boggy’ (‘ Bogie,’ proper name), ‘Tensaw’ (‘Tensas’), ‘Prairie Dan’ (‘ Prairie d’Ane’), “ Arkansaw,’ ‘Waco’ (‘ Hueco’), etc. It seems indeed paradoxical that the best educated and most literate population should have been least correct in the pronun- ciation; but when it is remembered that the Southern migrants procured their pronunciation by direct contact with the French and Spanish speaking people, and that the Websterian pronunciation was invented far from the scene, and in a day when modern lan- guages received little attention, and the monopolizing classics pro- nounced even the mother Latin in the euphonious venz, vzdz, vicz, method, it was nothing but natural, that, ‘‘ while Noah Webster in Connecticut was proposing single-handed to work over the English tongue so as to render it suitable to the wants of a self-complacent young nation,” he should have fallen into the error of writing in the former editions of his valuable dictionary, “ Arkansas, formerly pronounced and sometimes written ‘ Arkansaw.’” It is gratifying to note, that, with the increased facilities for travel of late years, these erroneous arbitrary pronunciations are wearing away, and that Webster’s latest edition gives the pronunciation “« Ar-kan-sa.’ Rost T. HILL. U.S. Geol. Surv., Jan. 17. The Iroquois Beach.—A Chapter in the History of Lake Ontario. I SEND you the following abstract of a paper read by me before the Washington Philosophical Society, Jan. 7, 1888. Of the high-level beaches about Lake Ontario, the most impor- tant is that to which the writer has given the name‘ Iroquois,’ after the Indian confederation who used portions of it as a trail. Frag- ments of this beach have long been known, but these were first correlated in New York by Mr. G. K. Gilbert, who discovered that the variations in its height were due to the differential elevation of the earth’s crust. These investigations have been carried around the Canadian side of the lake by the writer, whose studies upon the origin of the Great Lakes date back for a decade. He has also followed the beach beyond the observations of Mr. Gilbert, in north- 1 The old French methods of spelling these words are given in parentheses. They are instances of words wherein the orthography has been sacrificed, and the pronunci- ation approximately maintained. SCIENCE. 49 eastern New York, across the axis of maximum northern uplift, among the Laurentian ridges. In the old sea-cliffs in the region of Black River the author has found evidence of still older and greater differential elevation. At the head of the lake the height of the beach is 363 feet, south-east of the lake 441 (Gilbert), north-east, near Watertown, about 700, and at Trenton, Ont., 657 (barometric) feet, above the sea, in place of 247 feet, —the elevation of the modern lake. It is usually located within a few miles of the modern shore. At the south-eastern margin this beach sweeps around and includes Oneida Lake. North and east of Belleville, the lake, at this epoch, covered a large region, stretching to the Ottawa and down the St. Lawrence River. The maximum depth of the lake was 1,000 feet, in place of 738 feet, as at present; and of the out- let, 800, in place of a maximum of 240. The characters of the beach are described. Upon the northern side it rests upon drift- hills, but these are often replaced by more or less rocky shores upon the southern side. From Hamilton to Rochester, the eastward equivalent of the upward warping is three-fourths of a foot per mile, thence to Oneida Lake only one-fifth of a foot, and beyond a downward movement is indicated. At the eastern end of the lake the uplift increases from three feet to about five feet per mile, in proceeding northward. About the western end of the lake the northern equivalent of differential elevation ranges from 1.4 feet to three or four feet about Georgian Bay. The foci of elevation are south-east of James (Hudson) Bay. During the Iroquois epoch the lake was less than 140 feet above tide, and may have been at sea-level. In either case the outlet of the lake would have been 800 feet deep in places. There was no rock nor dirt barrier. Un- til further investigation shows the necessity, no other barrier will be assumed. In the Iroquois beach, remains of mammoths, elk, and beaver have been found, but no shells are known. There are lower beaches which are less perfectly developed, yet these show a decline of the warping forces. The Iroquois beach is coincident with the level of the Mohawk valley. Ontario was united with the other Great Lakes at a common level (the altitude being much lower than at the present day). This common lake (until the separation of Ontario) is here named Lake Warren, in honor of Gen. G. K. Warren, whom the writer regards as the father of lacustrine geology in America. Lake Warren is posterior to the last great ice epoch, and Ontario somewhat younger. Although the Ontario basin was somewhat warped before the Iroquois epoch, yet, so far, there is no evidence that the smaller basin formed an earlier separate lake. In the study of the lakes the two great questions are, the origin of the valleys, and the cause of their closing into water-basins. As the valleys were shown long ago by the author to be preglacial, the second question is now being solved by the labors of Mr. Gil- bert and the writer. Much unpublished information has been collected, and very much more is needed. There is now a dawn of light upon the theory and origin of the Great Lakes of North America. J. W. SPENCER. Weather-Predictions. IN addition to Mr. Clayton’s letter on this subject in Sczence for Jan. 13, I would state that I have never objected to a fair interpre- tation of ‘ my rules’ so called, which, however, were an amplifica- tion of his own. Long before the predictions closed, I wrote him, suggesting that when one predicted ‘rain,’ the other ‘ threatening,’ and the weather was actually ‘ fair,’ the prediction nearer the truth should have the more weight. It is easy to see that the intent of any rules could only be a fair comparison between predictions. As I have already stated (Sczence, Dec. 30, p. 323), in two cases Mr, Clayton came nearer the actual weather, and in eight mine were the nearer. It was only after Mr. Clayton refused this proposition and any reference to a third person that I referred the matter to an impartial judge. I am very glad indeed to find Mr. Clayton insisting, that, when predictions are made according to a certain rule, they should be verified thereby. In the case before us I have gone over all of Mr. Clayton’s predictions in the Boston Transcrzpt, and find, that, if he had modified them otherwise, they would have received the same verification by Upton’s scheme as by mine, or, under the most lib- 50 eral interpretation, the difference would have been only two or three per cent. I am very glad to know that Mr. Clayton verifies his predictions of three elements by only two of them, and this gives us an interest- ing verification of the predictions given in my first letter. If we count ‘rain’ =.o1 of an inch or more, and apply this to Mr. Clay- ton’s predictions, (1), we shall find that they verify 80 per cent; ap- plying to mine, (2), 96 per cent. But Mr. Clayton’s predictions were not made to be verified by this rule, so we must fall back on his official figures, which are 85 per cent. If any thing has been brought out most clearly by this discussion, it is the absolute need of a thorough examination of the method of prediction in each case; and if a comparison is to be instituted, it should only be after a careful formulation of a method which shall give a fair test of the nearness of the prediction to the actual weather experienced, taking into account as far as possible the language used in each prediction. I know it to be a fact that a person may give the same prediction for a place in two different terms, and a seeming application of the same rules to both will give a difference of more than 35 per cent in the two verifications. H. A. HAZEN. Washington, D.C., Jan. 20. Children’s Development. APROPOS of the letter of ‘G.’ on children’s development, in Sctence of Jan. 13, Iwas led to make the following contribution. When my little daughter was eighteen months old, I wrote down her vocabulary, as far as was possible,a number of days being spent in the process, so that it may be assumed that it is nearly complete. The total number of words is four hundred and sixty- nine, divided as follows : — (COME MENMSs ssancdonaccoocoo0d00506 bc sondbdoodnboGo 227 48.5% Proper nouns (mostly names of persons). ....----+....-- 31 6.6% Adjectives (including pronouns and articles)........ . ... 6r 13.0% WedsBoddsadvasodod Soododsauoebenupdsnousonddonnooo0dde 109 23.2% JACKS Sgacenusdayaosaucos shadoosoeospogboudouogadqoGo 22 4.7% Pre position smerenmer eect inaciicecrericerce ssieicieiiscitrs 9 1.9% Interjections.... 8 1.7% Conjunctionsmeresscee see eeeeccie one eceeeee eer 2 0.4% 469 5 These were all words used by the child spontaneously, and in ap- proximately their correct signification. Only one part of a verb is counted, unless the verbal stems of the different parts are distinct ; plurals are not separately counted; and words used both as nouns and verbs are counted only once. The percentages are not mate- rially different from those in the case cited by ‘G.,’ but further con- tributions on this point seem desirable. Vo dep sl Louisville, Ky., Jan. 18. Sections of Fossils. Mr. FOERSTE, in No. 258 of Sczence, quotes from letters from Professor Prestwich and Dr. Geikiein regard to sections of Bryozoa. In referring to these authors in No. 250 of Sczence, I did so simply to call attention to what they say in regard to rock-sections in gen- eral, not Brxyozoa in particular. It is not worth while to say more upon this point. In regard to my reference to Dr. Nicholson’s work, I never inferred “that Professor Nicholson does not be- lieve in the use of these microscopic sections,’ but that he stated in numerous places in both his volumes on fossil corals that in many cases it is not possible to separate species on internal structure, so recourse is had to external features; and from this fact I contend that the internal structure of these organisms is not sufficient to separate species. The old school, if it may be so called, as opposed to the new, believe that internal characters are often misleading, and that external features may more safely be fol- lowed. JOSEPH F. JAMES. Miami University, Oxford, O., Jan. 16, SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. No, 260 The Influence of Forests upon Rainfall and Climate. IN closing his valuable and interesting article in your paper of Jan. 6, entitled ‘Do Forests influence Rainfall?’ Mr. Henry Gan- nett says, “With these results in view, it seems idle to discuss further the influence of forests upon rainfall from the economic point of view, as it is evidently too slight to be of the least practical importance.’’ Aside from the beneficial influence of forests in the retention and saving of the water which falls, may it not be that there is an effect of the forest upon climatic extremes of heat and cold? This is well shown, I think, by the experience of western Michigan. During the early years of the settlement of the country, before the forests were destroyed, all the delicate fruits of temperate climates were successfully grown. Since the forests are nearly gone, the tender varieties of peaches can no longer be raised, except in a few favored localities, on ac- count of extreme winter cold; and the heat of our summers has been of late years as extreme as the cold of our winters. H. D. Post, Holland, Mich., Jan. 9. Is there a Venomous Lizard ? IN connection with the inquiry in Sczezce of Jan. 13, as to the existence of a poisonous lizard (He/oderma), my own observations would corroborate the negative answer of your correspondent. I have had in my laboratory for five years a living specimen of the Gila monster (Heloderma suspectum), and during a portion of this time two specimens, both in healthy vigorous condition. In No- vember, 1883, I presented a communication to the Kansas Acad- emy of Science, maintaining that this species is not venomous. I have repeatedly placed young kittens in the same cage with these reptiles, and have allowed them to remain together for a week at a time. During these times the kittens were frequently bitten fero- ciously by the lizards, but with no worse result than the temporary swelling of the part bitten from the mechanical effect of the power- ful pressure. This was at first surprising to me, as intelligent miners in New Mexico had often informed me that the mere breath of this lizard was fatal to man. F. H. SNow. Lawrence, Kan., Jan. 19. Queries. 24. SILVER DOLLAR IN A Porato.—Is there any likelihood of the truth of the following story found in a recent New York paper? On Friday last a young woman was engaged in boiling some potatoes. She tested nearly all of the Irish apples, and found that they had been cooked to the proper consistency save one. This particular ‘spud’ remained as hard as adamant, and, although she allowed it to boil for fifteen minutes longer than the others, it showed no signs of yielding. At last she succeeded in splitting the vegetable open, and in the centre she found a silver dollar with the date of 1886. The heart of the ‘spud’ was colored a blackish brown, but the outside presented a normal appearance. The silver dollar was black as ink. Answers. 22. WASP-STINGS.—Bumble-bees and honey-bees, as well as wasps, may be safely taken in the hand while holding the breath, provided the experimenter will catch only males, which are easily recognized by their long antennz and their face-colors. Have your correspondents been sure that they captured female wasps, which alone have stings? In the autumn the males are most plentiful, and in that season one may easily show an astonished companion how safely a wasp can be handled while holding one’s breath, and afterwards while breathing also; but in doing this, I always take care to catch the right kind of wasp first. My faith in the supposed safeguard has never been sufficient to try the ex- periment intentionally with female Acu/eata. Will not Mr. Safford make the test in the spring, and report his results once more? He will then doubtless agree with Zzfe, that the most important thing in holding a wasp is how to let go. W.-M. D. Cambridge, Mass., Jan. 20. JANUARY 27, 1888. | BOOK-NOTES. — The January number of the Quarterly Journal of Economics, now in the press, con- tains important articles by Pres. F. A. Walker on the Eleventh Census; Prof. Arthur T. Hadley on the operations of the Interstate Commerce Commission ; and Sidney Webb, lecturer in the City of London College, on the rate of interest. There are also minor arti- cles by Professor Marshall of Cambridge Uni- versity, England, F. B. Hawley, F. W. Taus- sig, and others; a letter from a Russian uni- versity on the economic literature of Russia ; and a reprint of a curious pamphlet on the London goldsmith-bankers of the seventeenth century. — The question whether the wheat of Man- itoba can be transported through Hudson Bay direct to Liverpool is of serious moment to this country as well as to Canada. On this subject, in The Amerzcan Magazine for February, J. Macdonald Oxley will throw whatever light recent exploring expeditions can afford, aided by illustrations and details of existence in a region where mercury freezes solid. — The January Wzde Awake is the New Year’s issue, a fine holiday number, delight- fully pictorial, giving as it does a dozen of the beautiful pencil-pictures of child-life by the English pencil-artist Warwick Brookes, together with an autograph letter of Mr. Glad- stone’s. — The Andover Review enters on its ninth volume with a very strong and effective num- ber. As usual, it combines discussion of dis- tinctively theological subjects with studies of social and literary topics. Mr. Pettengill of Portland, Ore., under the title, ‘The Mistake of Prohibition,’ presents the objection to pro- hibition, that it violates “some of the essen- tial conditions of efficient government under ‘our popular system.” Professor Tucker of Andover argues that the power ‘“ which is cultivating the making of drunkards as an organized industry” should be controlled, and this can only be effectually done through ‘ pro- hibition.’ Professor Andrews, reviewing Sir Henry Maine’s argument as to the ‘ Prospects of Popular Government,’ presents with a clear ‘statement of this author’s position a mass of facts from political history corrective of his despondent conclusions. An editorial on ‘the- logical pessimism’ is in the same line with Professor Andrews’s reasoning. —At the Lyceum Theatre, New York, Manager Frohman is still presenting the ad- mirable society-comedy of ‘The Wife.’ The Mazl and Express of New York says, “ It is the best new play produced in New York this season and the best American play ever pre- sented.” Manager Frohman regards it as the best dramatic effort of his life. —TIn the article on volcanoes in Scrzbizer’s Magazzne for February there will appear a translation, by Prof. J. G. Croswell, of the famous letters of the younger Pliny to Taci- tus, describing the great eruption of Vesuvius in 63 A.D. It is believed that this is the best translation of these letters which has yet appeared. SCIENCE. — The critical edition of Goethe’s works, issued under the auspices of the Grand Duchess of Saxony, and based on documents not available before the opening of the Goethe Archives at Weimar, has begun to appear. It is published by Hermann Boh- lan, Weimar. Calendar of Societies. Biological Society, Washington. Jan. 14, Election of Officers. — President, Mr. W. H. Dall ; vice-presidents, Dr. C. Hart Mer- riam, Mr. Richard Rathbun, Prof. C. V. Riley, Prof. L. F. Ward; secretaries, Yo. 136 Smith and Mr, F. A. Lucas; treasurer, Mr. F. H. Knowlton ; additsonal members of coun- cil, Dr. T. H. Bean, Prof. O. T. Mason, Prof. R. E. C. Stearns, Mr. F. W. True, and Dr. George Vasey. Philosophical Society, Washington. Jan. 21. — Bailey Willis, Determination of Fault Hades ; Robert T. Hill, The Neozoic For- mations in Arkansas; Romyn Hitchcock, Notes on Kclipse Photography in Japan; G. K. Gil- bert, The Flat Rock Channel. Jan. 25.— A. S. Christie, What is a Quarter- nion ? Torrey Botanical Club, New York. Jan. 10, Election of Officers. — President, Dr. J. S. Newberry ; treasurer, J. F. Poggenburg ; recording secretary, Arthur Hollick; corre- sponding secretary, Miss H. C. Gaskin ; cura- tor, Miss M. O. Steele; librarian, Dr. N. L. Britton ; editor, Mrs. N. L. Britton; associate editors, Miss E. L. Gregory, Jas. Schrenk, C.H. Kain, Dr. H. H. Rusby, Arthur Hollick. Byron D. Halstead, Trigger-Hairs of the Thistle-Flower (Czzcus altissimus); N. L. Brit- ton, Notes on a Collection of Plants made by Mr. W. S. Rusby in the Black Hills; E. E. Sterns, Notes on Calycanthus. New England Meteorological Society. Jan. 17. — Desmond FitzGerald, Exhibition of some Thermometers made by Baudin of Paris; A. Lawrence Rotch, Exhibition of a New Cloud-Mirror, also a New Aspiration Thermometer ; W. M. Davis, Hann’s Meteoro- logical Atlas. Boston Society of Natural History. Dec. 18. —K. Miyabe, Recent Observations in Regard to the Germination of Seeds under Water ; W. Sturgis, The Absorption of Dilute Coloring Solutions by Germinating Plants ; F. H. Newell, The Fossils of the Niagara Group from Northern Indiana. Engineers’ Club, St. Louis. Jan. 4. — Charles H. Ledlie, Construction of Dam and Reservoir at Athens, Ga. ; Professor Nipher, The Volt, the Ohm, the Ampere, — What are They ? es received at Editor’s Office, Jan. 2-7. Publications HAwWKEYE Omithologist and Oologist, The. Vol. I. No. 1. January, 1888. 72. Cresco, Io., Webster & Mead. 16p. 8°. 50 cents. Herrick, C. L. Contribution to the Fauna of the Gulf of Mexico and the South. Granville, O., Kussmaul & Shepardson, Pr. 56p., pl. f°. Locomotive Engineer. Vol. I. No. 1. January, 1888. mt. New York, Amer. Machin. Publ. Co. wop. £9. $x. Mininc Industry of New Zealand, Reports on the. Wel- lington, N.Z., Government. 251 Be £22 PENNSYLVANIA School. Vol. I. No. - January, 1888. m. Williamsport, Penn. School Go. 20p. 8°. $1. WincueELt, S. R. The Interstate Primer Supplement. Chicago, Interstate Publ. Co. 134 p. 16°. 25 cents. SCIENCE CLUBBING RATES. % DISCOUNT. F é e 3 5 We will allow the above discount to| 2 4, | S e ao any subscriber to Sczence, The Swiss) $5 = 2 Cross, or The Puzzler, who willsend a2 a a us an order for periodicals exceeding) 3 Cy $10. a a is American sRaeteullateat Sogognbaoce.ad $2.50 American Analyst.. 2.25 American Architect and News. Imperial edition................ 10.00) 12.80] 11.00 Gelatine ‘‘ 7-90} 9.80] 8.00 Regular ‘ : 6.00] 8.80] 7.00 American Garden............- I.00) 4.25] 2.25 American at of Philology. 3.00] 6.25] 4.25 American Machinist........... 2.50} 5.30] 4.50 American Magazine... 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 American Naturalist. 4.00) 6.80] 5.00 Andover Review.. 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 Atlanticecse eee. 4.00) 6.80] 5.00 Babyhood. I.50| 4.30] 2.50 Babyland. -50| 3.75| 1-75 Bradstreet’s 5.00} 7.80] 6.00 IBrainveeeeeereicc * 3-50} 6.30] 4.50 Building (weekly)...... 6.00} 8.80} 7.00 Carpentry and Building. I.00| 4.25| 2.25 Century Magazine....-. 4-00] 6.80] 5.00 Chautauquan, The .. I.50| 4.30] 2-50 Christian Union, The......... 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 Christian Weekly, Illustrated. . 2.50) 5-30] 3.50 Cosmopolitan, The......-..... 2.00} 4.80] 3.00 (Gaties5000000 coboda 3-00) 5.80] 4.00 Doctor 2.00) 4.80] 3.00 Eclectic Magazine. 5-00} 7.80] 6.00 Edinburgh Review. 4.00! 6.80] 5.00 Electrical World............-.----+- 3.00, 5.80] 4.00 Electrician and Electrical Engineer.| 3.00| 5.80] 4.00 Electrical Review...-.--++2e+seesee- 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 Engineering and Mining Jenna 4.00! 6.80] 5.00 English Illustrated wieeaane 1.75] 4-55] 2-75 Family Story Paper (N.Y.).. 3-00} 5.80] 4.00 Forest and Stream........- 4.00) 6.80} 5.00 Forum, The........ 5-00] 7.80} 6.00 Godey’s Lady’s Book. 2.00} 4.80] 3.00 Harper’s Bazar..... 4-00] 6.80]/ 5.00 Harper’s Magazine. 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 Harper’s Weekly...... 4.00} 6.80} 5.00 Harper’s Young People 2.00] 4.80! 3.00 Health and Home.... -| 2.00] 4.25] 2.25 Herald of Health.............----.- I.00] 4.25] 2.25 Illustrated London News (Amer. EPLING) seme efeliete staettoeketeleleyteistatelelar 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 Independent, The.. 3-00) 5.80] 4.00 Inter Ocean, The.. I.00| 4.25] 2.25 Tron Age (weekly) 4-50! 7.30| 5.50 Journal of Philology (Eng.).. 2.50| 5.30] 3-50 Journal of Speculative Philosophy (begins with Jan. No.). 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 IielS5 soponbagoapoeND 4.00| 6.80] 5.00 L’Art. 12.00] 14.80] 13.00 IetSoo0509000b0005000 5-00] 7.80} 6.00 Lippincott’s Magazine. 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 Littell’s Living Age.... 8.00] 10.80] 9.00 Little Men and Women. I.00] 4.25) 2.25 London Quarterly... 4.00} 6.80) 5.00 Macmillan’s Magazine eleleleleletnretl 3-00) 5.80} 4 00 Magazine of American Buia) 5.00) 7.80} 6.00 Medical and Surgical Journal... 5-00] 7.80) 6.00 Mechanical Engineer. 2.00] 4.80) 3.00 Metal Worker...... I.00] 4.25] 2.25 Microscope, The. I.00] 4.25) 2.25 WETHER, Gao josooadeNGe 6.00) 8.80) 7.00 New Princeton Review.. 3-00] 5.80| 4.00 North American Review. 5-00] 7.80] 6.00 Outing... 660000 3-00} 5.80! 4.00 Overland Monthly. 4:00| 6.80] 5.00 JENA? Boo) soog6u 4 agonuedouo I.00] 4.25] 2.25 Political Science Quarterly.. 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Popular Science Monthly.... 5-00] 7.80] 6.00 Popular Science News.. T.00] 4.25] 2.25 Portfolio, The 7-50| 10.30| 8.50 Practitioner. 3-50| 6.30] 4.50 Public Opinii 3-00} 5.80} 4-00 Puck ecer te 4.00} 6.80} 5.00 Puck (German).........+.-+- 5.00} 7.80] 6.00 Quarterly Review (London) 4.00) 6.80] 5.00 Queries. eee - om clas _ Si eS oS ag) an ee = | a8 = ee Sopa re ae ca < @ = = =< (o) n Ge Gar Ss n => an 5 1. (o>) S oD tae ahi 5 Zz = 0g : 4 s = F = ‘YIZZ0d AHL: ANIZVOVI ATHLNOW MAN V SWATIOUd ANVD ONY SH IZZ Nd . a SCIENCE SrxrH VEAR. NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 3, 1888. SINGLE Copies, TEN CENTS. VoL. XI. No. 261. $3.50 PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE. Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Olass Mail-Matter. Editorial ; ‘ : ‘ 51 | Notes and News Sanitary Supervision of Schoolhouses and Pupils. — Newly dis- covered Records of Magnetic Declination. | Letters to the Editor. Asa Gray u 3 : “ Reece A New Meteorite from Texas - Ward & Howell 55 | Jacobson’s ‘ Higher Ground’ Augustus Jacobson 55 Health Matters. | | Weather-Predictions Hf, Helm Clayton 56 Sex and Consumption 5 6 : 6 52 | Hybrid Diseases . 4 Wiliam Trelease 57 Book-Reviews | Color-Blindness . 0 : . W.B. Harlow 37 | ny ‘a ; = Handbook of Republican Institutions in the United States 53 A New Nestssons Om Asoo LS EEE 2 Organic Analysis 5 53 | The Flight of Birds Frederic A. Lucas 58 Elementary Chemistry . f hae, : 54 | Binocular Combinations upon Disparate Retinal Points Practical Chemistry : ‘ : j 54 J.H. Hyslop 39 Down the Islands : © . 54 | Bacteriology as a Study in Schools . Theobald Smith 61 Under the Southern Cross : 3 54 Queries and Answers 62 The Science Company, Publishers, London agent: G. E. Stechert, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. 26 King William St., Strand. ae Ek Sl) Third Amer 4,, WITH 89 ILLUS. AND A COLORED A Text-book for Students. By Pror. VicToR VON | RICHTER, University of Breslau. Authorized Translation. By Epcar F. SMITH, M.A., PH.D., Prof. of Chemistry, Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio, formerly in the Laboratories of the University of Pennsylvania and Muhlenberg College. Mem. Chem. Societies of Berlin and Paris, Acad. Nat. Sci., Philadelphia, etc. In most of the chemical text-books of the present day, one of the striking features and difficulties with which teachers have to contend is the separate presentation of the theories and facts of the science. In this work, which has been received with | such hearty welcome, theory and fact are brought close together, and their intimate | relation clearly shown. From careful observation of experiments and their results, the student is led toa correct understanding of the interesting principles of chemistry. The descriptions of the various inorganic substances are full, and embody the results | of the latest discoveries. The periodic system of MENDELEJEFF and LorHarR MEYER | constitutes an important feature of the book. The- thermo-chemical phenomena of the various groups of elements also receive proper consideration, both in their relation to chemical affinity and the law of periodicity. ORGANIC CHEMISTRY. e Fifth German Edition. SPECTRA. 12mo. CLOTH. 82.00. A. Genth, Prof. of Chemistry, and F. A Genth. Fr., Asst Prof. of Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania. ““We have examined with much care the ‘ Inorganic Chemistry ’ of Prof. Victor von Richter, recently translated by Dr. E. F.Smith. Both theoretical and general chemistry are treated in sucha clear andcomprehensive manner that it has become one of the leading text-books for a University course in Germany. We are indebted to Dr. Smith for his translation of this excellent work, which may help to facilitate the study of chemistry in this country.’’ From Prof. B. Silliman, Vale College, New Haven, Conn.— It is decidedly a | good book, and in some respects the best manual we have.” From Prof. E. P. Harris, Amherst College, Antherst, Mass. ‘“] have been acquainted with the original, both Inorganic and Organic, since their first publication, and have ever since regarded them both as the best books published in{those departments.” Richter’s Inorganic Chemistry is recommended at Yale College, New Haven, Conn.; Rennsselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N, Y.; University of Pennsylvania, Phila- delphia; Swarthmore College, near Philadelphia; Wisconsin State University, Madi- son; Trinity College, Hartford, Conn.; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, etc. etc., and many other schools and colleges. CHEMISTRY OF THE CARBON COMPOUNDS, or, Organic Chemistry. A complete Text-book and Laboratory Guide for Students. and translators. Illustrated. Cloth, $3.00. From the Fourth German Edition. Bysame author x" Complete descriptive Circulars of these books, and catalogue of chemical books, sent free upon application. P. BLAKISTON, SON & CO., Publishers, 1012 Walnut Street, Philadelphia. me me SCLENGE: A Brilliant New Novel by the author of “ The Story of Margaret Kent.” QUEEN MONEY. I vol. 1I2mo. A $1.50 “This is the strongest story ‘that this author has yet told. It isessentially a novel of character-painting, more even than ‘Margaret Kent’ or ‘Sons and Daughters.’ It is superior to either of these, because of its greater unity of plot, and the development of character and of situation. It is sustained to the end of the sto: It has the element of comedy. In short, the merits _of “Queen Money’ are very great. . Interesting and valuable and remarkably true to life. It isa book to be quoted, to be thcught about, to be talked about.’ The best critics who have read this forthcoming novel exalt it even above ‘* Margaret Kent,’’ that wonderfully successful story. It is a study of New-York society ; and abounds in thrilling situations and powerful characterizations. LOOKING BACKWARD; 2000-1887. By EDWARD BELLAMY, author of ‘ Miss Ludington’s Sister,” “Dr. Heidenhoff’s Process,” etc., etc. 1 vol. 12mo. $1.50 “The present antl growing regard for supernatural stories opens the way for Just such narratives as this. The Duchess Emilia’ and ‘She’ are not more strange than this story. UNDER THE SOUTHERN CROSS. By MatTuRIN M. BaLLou, author of ‘‘ Due North,” “ Edge-Tools of Speech,” ‘‘ Genius > in Sunshine and Shadow,” ete. 1 vol. I2mo. $1.50 The sights and peceuences ios a journey, in 1887, to Australia, Tasmania, Samoa, New Zealand, and other South-Sea islands. ‘© Due West,’‘ Due North,’ ‘ Due South,’ are among the rarest bits of foreign travel to which the untravelled public has access. It has never been our lot to know an- other author to travel and write with the same motive and in the same spirit that characterize these volumes. His latest travels have been in the Islands of the Pacific. He receives impressions of places and peoples so vividly that when he speaks or writes of them he gives one the im- pression he received.” — Fournal of Education. TRINITY CHURCH, BOSTON, MASS. MONOGRAPHS OF AMERICAN ARCHI- TECTURE, No. V. \ Portfolio, giving 22 Gelatine Views and 1 Heliochrome, 13x16 inches, of this cele- brated church. $10.00 INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS. In the American Architect and Building News. 1876-85. 1 vol. 8vo. $2.00 A carefully made topical index to the thousands of fine full-page Photolithographic and other illustrations printed in ‘‘ The American Architect’ for the past ten years, with the architects and costs of the buildings illus- trated. These include Sketches, Etchings, General Views ; Towers and Spires; Monuments, Statues, and Tombs ; Interiors and Furniture ; Entrances and Gate- ways ; Educational, Mercantile, and Public Buildings ; Churches and Parish-buildings ; Dwellings, Club2 Houses ; Theaters, Stables, and Farm- -Buildings ; Hotels, Museums, Libraries, and Town-Halls. Sold by Booksellers. Sent, post-paid, on receipt af the price, by the Publishers, TICKNOR & CO., BOSTON. LITHOLOGICAL OR LAPIDARY >) aN PAW EIES: ALSO OUTFITS COMPLETE of Foot Power Machinery for the actual business of the workshop — wood or metal workers, Catalogue Free. W. F. & JOHN BARNES CO., No. 638 Ruby St., Rockford, 111. GERMAN sIMPLIFIED. 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Spectacles, Eye Glasses, Opera and Marine Glasses, etc. Illustrated Price List mailed fvee to any ad- dress, Mention Science €=iueam in corresponding with us. ~ ANTED, a Local Agent in each city and village in the United States for the best Specialty retail- ing for ONE DOLLAR with 100 per cent. profit to Agents, ever put on the market. Illustrated Catalogue FREE. Address SCHOFIELD M’F’G CO., Rocky Hill,Ct. V | uk S. R. Wincitect & Co., 185 Wabash Ave., 0 apu * Chicago, publish the Handbook of Volapuk, by Chas. E. Sprague, $1.00, and an A éyidged Grammar of Volapik. by Prof. Kerckhoffs, adapted to the use of English-speaking people by Karl Dornbusch. 20 cents. Mailed on receipt of price. Mann’s Reterence Indexes. References to and transcripts or translations of the lit- erature of any suBjECT furnished by B: PICKMAN MANN, Wasuinecton, D.C. Correspondence fee, 50 cents. free. “How to. Strengthen the Memory.” Rev. E. L. Kelly, of Paterson, N. J., writing of Dr Holbrook’s book, ‘“ How to Strengthen the Memory ; or, Natural and Scientific Methods of Never Forgetting, says; ‘‘I haveread this treatise, this gem, and fin mine of wealth hidden in its pages, By it I was eaatled last evening to learn the poem Stabat Mater,’ in Latin. It took a little time, but the results were marvelous.’” Catalogue and prospectus free. Explanatory circulars Mailed to any address on receipt of $1, by M. L. HOLBROOK CO., 13 Laight St., New York. NEW MAGAZINE—THE SWISS Devoted to spreading a love of CROSS nature among the people. Edited by HarRLAN H. BALLARD, President of the Agassiz Asso- ciation, and succeeding St. Nich: ¢ Ss as the official maga- zine of that body. $1.40 a year. Sample copy 10cents, or23 cents for ea snbseription for 3 months. N. D. C. HODGES, PUBLISHER, Mention this magazine 47 Lafayette Place, New York. PENCE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1888. THE COMMISSIONERS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS of Baltimore, Md., have taken the initiative in the introduction into the public schools of that city of a series of reforms which, if adopted, will be of great benefit to the pupils. Thisactionis the more noteworthy from hav- ing originated in the school board, the proposition coming from its committee on health, and not being forced upon it by the board of health or public opinion. It is greatly to be hoped that the mayor and common council of the city will give the necessary power and money to carry these resolutions into effect. After a preamble to the effect that sanitarians and teachers have proven that children attending school are frequently subjected to influences prejudicial to health, which often leave their effects upon the constitution for life, and that it has been demonstrated, that, by expert sanitary supervision of schoolhouses and of the pupils themselves, many of these injurious influences can be mitigated and removed, the res- lutions are, that the mayor and city council be requested to authorize the commissioners of public schools to appoint an officer, who shall be a physician and expert in sanitary science, to be known as the sanitary superintendent of public schools, whose duty shall be, Ist, to carefully examine all plans submitted for the construc- tion of new schoolhouses, and suggest such modifications as may be necessary from a sanitary point of view; 2d, to advise with the commissioners with reference to necessary alterations in school- buildings to improve their hygienic condition ; 3d, to examine all text-books before adoption, in order that type, printing, or paper injurious to the eyesight of pupils may be avoided in selecting such books; 4th, to satisfy himself, by personal examination if neces- sary, that all pupils admitted tae the schools have been properly vaccinated or are otherwise protected against small-pox; 5th, to take such other measures, in conjunction with the health com- missioner of the city, as may be necessary to prevent the spread of contagious diseases in, or through the medium of, the public schools; 6th, to examine annually the eyesight of all children at- tending the public schools, and keep an accurate record of such examinations; 7th, to report annually, or as often as may be re- quired by the commissioners, upon the sanitary condition of the schools, and of the pupils attending them, and to advise the com- missioners upon sanitary questions connected with schools when- ever required ; 8th, to give instruction, by lectures or otherwise, to the teachers in the schools upon the elementary principles of school hygiene. ASSISTANT CHARLES A. SCHOTT, assistant in charge of the com- puting division of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, has addressed a letter to the superintendent of that bureau which states that the dis- covery of records of the magnetic declination, A.D. 1714, off the coast of Mexico, by Assistant G. Davidson, and transmitted by him to this office, Dec. 7, 1887, proved to be a matter of much impor- tance by greatly increasing our knowledge of the secular variation of the declination, By means of these observations we are able to improve materially the expressions for San Blas and Magdalena Bay, to add the new station Cape San Lucas, and to make their influence felt as far north as San Diego and Santa Barbara. It is the range which is greatly improved ; besides, the epoch of maxi- mum declination is shifted in the right direction. Apart from the fact that a region of west declination ishere for the first time obser- vationally indicated on the Pacific coast, the power of the newly re- covered declinations is due to the circumstance, that, as far as known, they cover a time when the needle was in or near a phase the opposite of the present one. For want of early observations, these previously collected for San Diego and Santa Barbara, Cal., were extremely difficult to handle; and, while it was not an easy matter to establish new expressions for these stations, their correct- ness, or rather applicability over the whole period of time the obser- vations cover, is quite re-assuring. He points out the desirability of new observations (either using funds yet available before July next, or providing funds to be used after that date) at San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Monterey, and states that these stations have received no attention for seven years. These observations are de- manded to give greater precision to the computed variations on our charts. ASA GRAY. Pror. ASA Gray died at his home in the Botanic Gardens, Cambridge, Mass., on Monday evening, Jan. 30. He had been un- conscious since last Thursday, and helpless for more than a month. Dr. Gray was born at Paris, N.Y., Nov. 18, 1810. He took the degree of M.D. at Fairfield Medical School, in 1831, but never practised medicine. After a short time spent in teaching some branches of natural history ina private school in Utica, he was induced, through correspondence with Dr. Torrey of New York, a professor of chemistry but more widely known as a botanist, to ac- cept, in 1833, a position in his laboratory, and a little later that. of curator in the Lyceum of Natural History. By Dr. Torrey’s side, he began a career of ceaseless botanical activity. His botanical publications were begun with a description of certain sedges and newly discovered plants of north-western New York. In 1835 appeared ‘ North-American Grasses and Sedges,’ and in the following year ‘The Elements of Botany.’ This last was more than a mere compilation of the materials available at the time, and gave a good account of what was known of the prin- ciples of morphology, histology, vegetable physiology, and of the department in which Mr. Gray was more interested, botanical classification. Although the young writer ventured to differ from the authorities of the day, he was happy in after years in finding that these expressions of his youth needed but little change. His ‘Botanical Text-Book’ was published in 1842; and with this;we may refer to the educational books written by him, which comprise along list: ‘How Plants Grow’ (1858), ‘How Plants Behave’ (1875), ‘The Lessons’ (1857), a new edition of ‘The Elements’ (1887), and the ‘ Text-Book,’ issued during the past year, which is a revised edition of ‘The Lessons.’ Besides these, we may men- tion ‘The Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States’ (1848), of which there were five editions, also ‘Field, Forest, and Garden Botany’ (1868). His ‘Manual’ is probably the best known, as it must have been in the hands of every American botanist since the time of its publication. The ‘Genera of North America’ he began in 1848, but of this but two volumes have been published, which, even in their unfinished condition, have been of great use to botanical teachers. The great work of his life is the great «Synoptical Flora,’ which had its beginning in Torrey and Gray’s ‘Flora’ forty years ago. As far as published, it consists of a volume of nine hundred and seventy-four pages on the gamopeta- lous orders, but there are other portions which have been pub- lished in the Proceedings of the American Academy. It would be impossible to enumerate the numerous memoirs and papers which have come from his pen, many of which have been tributary to the ‘Flora.’ Dr. Gray regarded as his most important minor work ‘The Relations of the Japanese Flora to those of North America,’ published in 1859. This was based on the study of plants col- lected by Wright, and he believed this paper gave him his reputa- tion to a large extent in Europe. 52 SCMaINeE: In 1834, or possibly later, Dr. Gray received an appointment as botanist of the Wilkes expedition, which was expected to start for the South Sea Islands ; but delay after delay, and a change in the plans of the expedition, caused him to resign, and about this time he received an appointment to the chair of botany in the University of Michigan, then just established. He asked for a year’s absence in Europe, which was granted him, during which year he not only made valuable purchases and collections for the library of the new university, but gained the personal acquaintance of the leading European botanists. He made himself also familiar with the type specimensin the older herbaria, and came back fully equipped for the work of his life, the examination of the North American flora, the first volume of his ‘Flora’ being completed in 1840. He never occupied the chair at Michigan, but in 1842 accepted a professor- ship of natural history in Harvard. The early years of his life in Cambridge were naturally occupied with routine teaching, with appliances which would be regarded as utterly inadequate at the present time; but it was a small beginning, which has led to the better-equipped Botanic Garden and to the establishment of an herbarium. He continued his work as an instructor till 1872; but during this time he found opportunities for carrying on his work on the ‘ North American Flora,’ for the preparation of his educational treatises, and for increasing the popular interest inscience. In ad- dition to this, he devoted much time to the American Academy, in which he always took the greatest interest. To the public not merely interested in the science of botany, especially to the religious public, Dr. Gray is well known by his writings on the relations of science and religion, and upon the Darwinian theory. Darwin, in his letters recently published, refers to Gray as one of the three or four whose judgment on his theory was of more value to him than that of the world besides, including with Gray, Hooker, Lyell, and Huxley. Darwin had been in cor- respondence with Dr. Gray for years before the publication of his great book, and had been gathering from him botanical facts bear- ing upon his hypothesis ; and from the time of the appearance of that volume Dr. Gray was one of the earnest advocates. of the theory as a fair working hypothesis. Many residents of Boston and vicinity will recall the earnest discussion before the American Academy, in the years 1860 and 1861, between Dr. Gray and Pro- fessor Agassiz on this great question. Dr. Gray was crowned with diplomas and honors from all the principal universities of Europe, and during the past summer, while travelling in England, received degrees from the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Edinburgh. He leaves no children, but a widow, the daughter of the late eminent lawyer Charles G. Loring of Boston; and a host of friends in Cambridge and throughout the country will feel that his death has extinguished a bright and cheer- ing light in the world of thought, and has removed a most cherished and valued friend and companion. HEALTH MATTERS. Sex and Consumption. Dr. THOMAS J. MAys of Philadelphia has contributed to the Medzcal News a very valuable paper on female dress as a deter- mining factor in pulmonary consumption. He says that it is cur- rently believed that more females than males fall victims to this disease. Both Laennec and Louis held this view, at least so far as France was concerned; and Ancell, one of the most prolific and exhaustive writers on the natural history of tuberculosis, concurs entirely in this opinion. Sir James Clark’s statistics, which were collected from thirteen different localities in Europe and America, showed in the aggregate more deaths from phthisis among females than among males. Dr. A. James, in an interesting article on sex in connection with phthisis, lately published in Zhe Edinburgh Medical Journal (March, 1886), arrives at the same conclusion. It must be admitted, too, that, if the question of sex in relation to pulmonary consumption be viewed from an @!/rzor¢ standpoint, there are sufficient reasons for believing that the female is more prone to the disease than the male, because she is generally con- sidered to be the weaker, and because she is more exposed to the causes which are known to give rise to it. She is confined within- doors, where she naturally spends the greater portion of her life, [VoL. XI. No. 261 and is, of course, subjected to the influences of impure air and bad ventilation. She leads a sedentary life, is deprived of sunlight, exercise, and undergoes the enervating processes of gestation and lactation, while, on the other hand, the male is, as a general rule, less or not at all exposed to most of such unhealthful conditions ; and it is only when he is subjected to some of them, as, for instance, to impure air, sendentary occupations, etc., that he becomes noto- riously liable to pulmonary consumption. Dr. Mays has collected statistics for many of the American cities, and also for other countries, and finds, that, so far as they go, they establish the fact beyond a doubt, that in civilized life the male sexis more liable to pulmonary consumption than the female. He gives the following statistics : — STATISTICS OF SEX IN PULMONARY CONSUMPTION. Locality. Male. Female. Remarks. Chicago! . O F ¢ I: 635 I: 793 Average for 6 years, 1869, 1881-85. New York City, 1870 5 0 7, BOER} 1: 318 Massachusetts, 1880 G O 2.86% 3.28% Per 1,000 males and females respec- tively. Boston, 1883-84 4 1: 248 I: 251 Rhode Ysland, 1884 and 1885 5 I: 380 I: 351 Philadelphia, "1884 and 1885 : I: 303 I; 310 Nashville, 1877 and 1878 . I: 263 I: 286 Both white and col- ored males and females. s sree gies, 1oyiee I: 443 I: 422 White males and fe- males only. 0 Ch WR OY 12142 I: 190 Colored males and females only. San Francisco, 1875-80 . 5 I: 313 1: 418 Average of 5 years. Sacramento 5 . g I 2340 I: 435 Average of years Lae X 1874 and 1879. Cincinnati, 1883 I 2325 I: 423 Baltimore, 1885 . . I: 342 I: 381 Scotland, 1871-80 I: 423 I: 387 England, 1872-81 . I: 467 I: 502 London, 1843-46, decedents from consumption 7 53% 47% See “Ancell,’ p. 396. Basel and Zurich, 1877-84, de- cedents from consumption 54:7% 45-03% See Dr. Schnyder in Correspondenz Blatt fiir Schwei- zer Aerzte, Nos. Cantons of Wallis, Waadt, Frei- 10, II, 12, 1886. burg, Lucerne, from 1877 to 1884, decedents from consUne tion ; 52.5% 47-5% Lbid. Cities of Prussia, 1875- 79. 1: 236 1: 318 County districts of Prussia, 1 1875-79 I: 314 I: 369 Leading cities of New ‘Jersey, 1884, deaths from consump- tion in nine ° - 5 04 84 Hospital and Private Practice. Male. Female. Remarks. Dr. Flint, Sr., 669 cases . 9 505 164 See ‘Flint on Phthi- sis,’ p 50. Dr. Williams, 1,000 cases . 625 375 See ‘ Williams on Consumption.’ First Brompton aiosrieal report) 1848 3 61 39 Dr. Pollock’ s practice . 60.75% 9.25% 254 patients of Dr. Schnyder’ 5 See Dr. Schnyder, coming from cities g 165 89 Cor. Blatt fiir Schweizer Aerste, Nos. 10, rx, and 12, 1886. 914 patients of Dr. Schnyder’ = | from the country . 537 377 Tbid. 500 of Dr. Brehmer’s cases 6 319 181 See Brehmer, ‘ Die Aetiologie der chronischen Lun- | genschwindsucht.’ 88 cases reported by Dr. | ; Churchill of Paris 59 29 67 cases reported by Dr. Thor- owgood 34 33 Cases in Royal Infirmary, Edin- See Reynold’s ‘ Sys- burgh, 1833, 1834, and 1835 . 365 217 tem of Medicine,’ vol. iii. p. 546. Consumptives in three Parisian hospitals, proportioned to the | whole number of inmates 5 Reas I:2r See * Ancell,’ p. 397. 550 deaths in St. George’s Hos- pital in ten years . 388 162 bid, p. 763. Chest Department of Phila. Polyclinic since Jan. 1885 . 113 88 Brompton Hospital for Con- sumption, from 1842 to 1848 2,682 1,507 i 1 These figures indicate a lower death-rate for Chicago than actually exists, be- cause we are not able to obtain the male and female population of this city separately : hence our estimate is based on the male and female population of Cook County, in which it is located, and for comparative purposes answers very well. FEBRUARY 3, 1888. | Having seen, then, that in the aggregate more civilized males tnan females die of pulmonary consumption; that the costal respi- ration of the civilized female is developed through the constricting influence of dress around the abdomen; that the lungs possess an excessive breathing surface which by sedentary occupations, etc., can be, and is frequently, reduced in a great degree; that the bane- ful results of such a reduction, consisting of hyperzemia, etc., fall with the greatest force on the apex of the lung; that all those who suffer from consumption also show a decided tendency to immo- bility of the upper part of the chest, —are we not, therefore, justi- fied in believing that a defective costal respiration and the begin- ning of pulmonary consumption stand in relation to each other as cause and effect? And, going one step further, is it not clear that the civilized female owes her greater immunity from this disease in a great measure to the fact that she possessesa more highly devel- oped costal expansion? If these relations exist, it is quite obvious that her manner of dress is a direct factor in bringing about this result. She has, by force of necessity, been led to clothe herself after a method which demands a restriction of the abdominal and diaphragmatic movements, and which cultivates a greater develop- ment of the costal portion of the breathing-organs, and thereby she unconsciously protects herself to a greater degree against this disease ; while the male, on the other hand, dresses himself after a fashion which secures perfect fredom of motion to the diaphragm and to the abdominal muscles, but which also attracts and tends to confine the respiratory function to the lower portion of the chest. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that the same fashion also de- mands that his clothing should be suspended from the shoulders, which of itself restricts the movements of the upper portion of the chest ; making it evident, therefore, that his clothing renders him, both indirectly and directly, more liable to the disease under con- sideration. To this conclusion, and to no other, do our facts and reasoning lead. The evidence which has thus far been gathered from statistical, experimental, and inductive grounds, all tends to demonstrate that impairment of the respiratory movements of the upper portion of the lungs is one of the principal direct causes of pulmonary con- sumption. Indeed, all the proof goes to show that in many condi- tions of life, especially in many of those to which the male sex is exposed, the apices of the lungs become superfluous parts of the body, and on this account possess a strong tendency to that prema- ture waste which is characteristic of all organs when they fall into a state of inactivity. The practical solution of the problem of the prevention of pulmonary consumption, as well as of the cure in many cases, therefore consists in the adoption of measures which tend to increase the chest capacity, and which maintain the general and local health of the individual. The treatment, so far as prevention is concerned, resolves itself into a proper exercise of the chest muscles, into systematic breath- ing, and into the rational employment of compressed and rarefied air. First, then, as to a proper training of thechest muscles. This is accomplished by raising the shoulders, and by swinging the arms backward, forward, and upward, either with or without dumb- bells, or by exercising on parallel bars, care being taken that a full inspiration is taken every time that the arms are thrown backward and upward, or the body forward, and that a complete expiration occurs when the arms are brought together in front, or when the body is thrown backward. These movements should be per- formed regularly, and from sixteen to twenty times in a minute. There are a number of appliances in the market which are worked by means of ropes, weights, and pulleys, and which are admirably adapted for the enhancement of the above-described movements. They are very simple, and can be attached to the wall of the nursery or of the sleeping-room, and not only afford a healthful ex- ercise, but a pleasant amusement for both children and adults. BOOK-REVIEWS. Handbook of Republican Institutions in the Unzted States of America. By DUGALD J. BANNATYNE. - New York, Scrib- ner & Welford. 16°. THIS would have been a remarkable book even for an experi- enced public official to have written, and it is doubly so, coming SCIENCE. 53 from a foreigner. It is the most systematic, the most complete, and the most accurate handbook of our institutions that has ever come to our notice. The author is a Scotch attorney, resident for twenty-two years past in Canada and the United States. In his preface he gives the reason for writing the book. “I have fre- quently heard it said,’’.he writes, “that an immigrant into either of these countries, who brings some capital with him, is not likely to permanently succeed until he has lost all he brought with him and has started afresh.” The author’s personal experience cor- roborates this saying, and he attributes its truth to the fact that immigrants are ignorant of the country, the people, the customs, the government, to which they have come. To aid such in removing their ignorance, the book before us was written. But its existence can be and should be defended on far broader grounds. Itis a mine of information for the American citizen himself, or at least it would be if it had an index. No table of contents, however full, can take the place of a good index. The work consists of an introductory chapter and two parts. In the introduction the author gives a cursory view of our political life, its conditions, and its most recent workings. Rather too many statements rely upon the somewhat vivid and always vehement imaginations of the New York Wor/d for their foundation; but this is a minor matter, and may be overlooked. Mr. Ballantyne betrays his foreign extraction by criticising the equal representa- tion of States in the United States Senate. The populations and areas which he cites as evidences of inequality of representation have absolutely no bearing upon the question whatever ; for it is States as such, and not populations or areas, that are represented in the Senate. In these days, when so much ignorant criticism and unintelligent abuse are directed at public officials, it is pleasant to find that a disinterested and presumably non-partisan foreigner can write as follows: ‘“ The reader’s attention should be attracted by the manner in which the whole population is, through Congress, kept thoroughly posted as to the several executive departments, and the whole United States and state, county, town, village, and city machinery. The writer has on several occasions tested the merits of the federal, state, county, and other public officers, and has always had prompt response and courteous treat- ment. There is no unnecessary red-tapism or flummery, and every respectful application, whatever the form, receives attention ” (p. 51). Part first contains the great national documents, — the Consti- tution, Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, and Washington’s Farewell Address (which in some places the types make ‘Farewell Letter’). Then follow careful, painstaking, and accurate descriptions of Congress, the Presidency, the Executive Departments, and their numerous bureaus and divisions. Every branch of the national administration is touched upon. The Terri- tories are described, and the Enabling Act of Colorado given, to show by what process a Territory becomes a State. Part second treats of State government and administration. That of New York is taken asa type. This is just as full and com- prehensive as the preceding part, except in the case of cities. They are very scantily treated in two pages, whereas at least twenty-five would be necessary to make clear their organization and relation to the county and State governments. The subject of education and school organization is amply treated. We lay down the book with a feeling of profound satisfaction, and with full appreciation of its value as a book of reference. The author’s descriptions are impartial, and he rarely presents his own opinions or views. When he varies from this rule, his suc- cess is such that we are tempted to wish he did it oftener. Wit- ness this comment: ‘‘ There is need for a national bureau of im- migration and naturalization, in which shall be kept a register re- cording the names and full particulars of every immigrant, and also a register of every immigrant naturalized under the laws of the United States, and which shall refer to the entries in the other register.” We commend the book unreservedly. Organic Analysis. New York, Van- Nostrand. 8°. THIS volume is in a measure an outgrowth of the useful little book put forth by the same author thirteen years ago under the title of By ALBERT B, PRESCOTT. 34 ‘Outlines of Proximate Organic Analysis,’ and deals mainly with cer- tain common organic compounds of importance in commerce or phar- macy. Many topics which are touched upon in the smaller book — such, for example, as the properties of the alcohols and alcoholic de- rivatives, and of the carbohydrates — are here passed by, excepting, perhaps, mere incidental mention; but such substances as are dis- cussed at all, are in general treated fully and exactly, with liberal citation and reference to authorities. The alkaloids naturally hold an important place; and schemes for plant-analysis, the examina- tion of coloring-imaterials, and the separation and identification of fats and oils, are prominent. The title of the book is suggestive of a view broader than that actually presented, but it should be said in this connection that information upon the more important topics omitted is easily accessible elsewhere. This book is a decidedly valuable contribution to the literature of analysis. Elementary Chemistry. By M.M. PATTISON MUIR and CHARLES SLATER. Cambridge, Eng., University Pr. 12°. $1.25. Practical Chemistry. By M. M. PATTISON MuIR and DOUGLAS CARNEGIE. Cambridge, Eng., University Pr. 12°. 8ocents. THESE two books are complementary, and together outline a pro- gressive course in elementary chemistry. The ‘ Practical Chemistry ’ leads experimentally from the demon- stration of the distinction between simple physical and chemical changes up to such topics as the investigation of atomic weights, the phenomena of dissociation, the relative affinities of acids, the constitution of compounds, rates of etherification, and specific vol- umes ; the acquisition of the elements of qualitative and quantita- tive analysis being assumed as an intermediate and outside incident of the course of work. The ‘Elementary Chemistry’ presents the essential facts and theories of chemistry, carefully distinguished and correlated in a clear and logical manner, the properties of bodies being discussed in the light of the ‘periodic law.’ The-plan of instruction is in many respects unique and admirable, and reflects very strongly the growing tendency toward the early introduction of methods approximately quantitative. Down the Islands. By WILLIAM AGNEW PATON. New York, Scribner. 8%, $4. THE author, who made a brief voyage to the Caribbees and Brit- ish Guiana, tells the experiences and observations of his voyage. In an introductory note he confesses that on starting he had no knowl- edge whatever of the country he was going to visit. If this be true, he has made good use of his brief trip, for the book contains much valuable information ; not the less valuable, as told in a very attrac- tive form. In reading the description, it would seem as though the writer gives nothing but the impressions of an observant traveller who is unexpectedly taken to a world entirely new to him; and this makes his tale very charming. His remarks show that he is quick to catch the characteristic features of the country he visits; and his descriptions of the character of the several islands, of the English and French Creole, of the negroes, the ‘black and yellow Caribs,’ and of the Hindu coolie, are worth reading, Besides, a consider- able amount of reliable statistical and historical information is em- bodied in this book, which gave us greater pleasure and satisfaction than many a pretentious book of travel. Under the Southern Cross. By M. M. BALLOU. Boston, Ticknor, 12°. $1.50. THE author, who has spent much of his time in travelling all over the world, tells in the present volume the story of a journey to the Pacific Ocean. Starting from Boston, he crossed the conti- nent, and began his sea-voyage in San Francisco. A few days were spent on the Hawaiian Islands, a few hours’ stay was made at Samoa, and then he proceeded to New Zealand and Australia. The time has passed when scientific results of great import may be gleaned from such a journey; but the author tells in an attrac- tive form his observations and experiences, and gives us a glance of the life of the colonists and natives of the Pacific Ocean so far as he has seen it. Special attention is devoted to the political relations of the South -Sea colonies to America and Europe. The author dwells upon the question of the proposed federation of the Australian colonies and the probability of their becoming an independent republic, upon SCIENCE. [Vous XI. No, 262 American influence in Hawaii and the development of American trade on the islands in consequence of the reciprocity treaty, and upon the late events in the Samoan Islands. Australian stock- raising and mining, and British immigration to these countries, are discussed, as well as the influence of the Chinese and of coolie labor, but the main and best part of the book are the inter- esting sketches of cities. Several descriptions of scenery are vivid and attractive, but those passages in which the author attempts to touch upon questions of geography or ethnology show that he has only paid a flying visit to the Pacific Ocean, and that he has not lived long enough in those regions to gain a thorough insight of their nature and of their natives. NOTES AND NEWS. THE Razlway Review says that the Russians are pushing for- ward the Transcaspian Railroad as rapidly as possible. Seven thousand men are now grading the road through Bokhara. It is now ready for the rails for four-fifths of the way between the Oxus and Samarcand, nearly three hundred miles; but the track cannot be laid until the bridge over the Oxus is completed. This bridge, now more than half finished, will be three miles long. It will con- nect the road now completed to the Oxus with the extension to Samarcand, and next spring the line will probably be in operation. —TIt is but a short time since we called attention to Edwards's ‘Butterflies of North America,’ and now a new part lies before us. Indeed, within a twelvemonth four parts of the new series have ap- peared, the intervals between them being briefer than has been the case with any preceding numbers in the twenty years it has been running. More species of the prolific genera Coléas and Argynnzs are figured, but the specially attractive plate of the number —and there is always one —is that devoted to Cenonympha california, or galactznus as Mr. Edwards would prefer to have uscallit. The transformations of this genus are now for the first time illustrated by the early stages of one of our American forms ; and the number of exquisite figures “given to these early stages would be deemed almost luxurious if we were not accustomed to this kind of gener- osity on Mr. Edwards’s part. The species is abundant on the Pacific coast, but was first raised in West Virginia from eggs sent the author from California, and we now knowits history better than any species of the genus is known in Europe. Two forms, distin- guishable by slight differences in the intensity of the markings, have long been regarded as one and the same species; but it was reserved to Mr. Edwards to prove by his precise experiments that the two were seasonally dimorphic forms of one and the same species, the darker giving birth the same summer to the lighter. We wish that this work, so great a credit to American science and American art, were better supported, and not published at so heavy an expense to its indefatigable author. It is in fact superior, both in matter and in execution, to any thing which is done abroad, and ought to receive ample support at home. Yet we chance to know that nearly forty per cent of the regular subscribers to the work come from outside of the United States. This shows, indeed, its appreciation in other countries; but it is a kind of work which should be found in every considerable library of the country, as a stimulus and an aid to workers young and old, and to show what one man, remote from associates, libraries, and even from much of his own field of work, may accomplish therein. — Gardiner G. Hubbard, C. E. Dutton, O. H. Tittman, J. H. Gore, C. H. Merriam, J. R. Bartlett, R. Birnie, jun., J. W. Powell, Henry Gannett, A. H. Thompson, A. W. Greely, Henry Mitchell, George Kennan, Marcus Baker, and Gilbert Thompson, all of Washington, have incorporated the National Geographical Society for a term of one hundred years. Its principal objects are to in- crease and diffuse geographical knowledge, to publish the transac- tions of the society, to publish a periodical magazine and other works relating to the science of geography, to dispose of such pub- lications by sale or otherwise, and to acquirea library under the re- strictions and regulations to be established by its by-laws. The officers elected for the current year are as follows: president, Gar- diner G. Hubbard; vice-presidents, H. G. Ogden (United States Coast and Geodetic Survey), Com. J. R. Bartlett (Hydrographic FEBRUARY 3, 1888.] Office), Gen. A. W. Greely (chief signal-officer), Dr. C. Hart Mer- riam (Department of Agriculture), A. H. Thompson (United States Geological Survey); treasurer, C. J. Bell; secretaries, Henry Gannett (United States Geological Survey), George Kennan ; managers, Dr. J. C. Welling (president of the Columbian Univer- sity), W. B. Powell (superintendent of schools, Washington), Capt. Rogers Birnie, jun., U. S. A.. W. D. Johnson (United States Geo- logical Survey), Henry Mitchell (United States Coast and Geodetic Survey), Marcus Baker (United States Geological Survey), G. Brown Goode (National Museum), Cleveland Abbe (United States Signal Office). — ‘Little Poems for Little Children’ and ‘Stories for Little Readers’ (Chicago, Interstate Publishing Company) are books of elementary reading for students in primary grades. They are con- siderably above the average of such books. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. * Correspondents are requested to be as briefas possible. The writer's name is in all cases required as proof of good faith. Twenty copies of the nunther containing his communication will be furnished Sree to any correspondent on request. The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. A New Meteorite from Texas. WE have this day received a new entire meteorite from Texas, weighing about two hundred and eighty pounds. It belongs to the class siderolites, although the nickeliferous iron apparent to the naked eye is scarcely more than in some of the aerolites. Olivine is present in great abundance, giving a yellowish-green appearance to the wholemass. A hasty examination also reveals anorthite and a few specks of a bronzy looking metal, which is doubtless noilite. The meteorite was brought to us by one of our assistants, who found it near the south-west bank of the Colorado River, about three miles south-west of La Grange, Fayette County, Tex.: we would therefore suggest the name of ‘The La Grange Meteorite’ for it. A fuller description, with complete analyses, will be pub- lished later. WARD & HOWELL. Rochester, N.Y., Jan. 31. Jacobson’s ‘Higher Ground.’ YOUR notice of ‘ Higher Ground’ in Sczence (x. No. 254) was so kindly, that I hesitate to impose upon your good nature by asking you to devote additional space to the subject. And whatever I may say will not be said in a spirit of controversy. You approve of manual training in public schools, and you ap- prove of the succession-tax as a means of enabling all children to get the benefit of the schools. Your only question is, Would the proposed succession-tax pay the bill? and your answer is, that it would not. If a change so great as the one proposed could be made all at once, the proceeds of the succession-tax would not be sufficient to pay the bill. But it would take years and years to bring about so vast a change; and I believe that the proceeds of the succession- tax would be sufficient to pay the bill as fast as the change could be brought about, because wealth is increasing much faster than population. As an illustration of a change to which there is com- paratively little opposition, see the length of time it takes for the high-license movement to make its way, —a movement full of good sense, to which, from pecuniary interest only, the liquor-dealers are opposed. What would not the opposition be to the succession-tax movement, and the apparent absurdity of paying people for keeping their children at school ? To say that there were in this country, in 1880, 8,347,731 chil- dren of the age in question; and that to pay, at the rates proposed, three-fourths of their number for going to school, would require $919,502,737.50; and that this sum could not be raised by the pro- posed tax, —is not that very much as if some one had said in 1830, “To do the transportation business of this country, we shall need 140,000 miles of railroad, costing eight thousand millions of dollars, and such a sum could not be raised for such a purpose ” ? The money for the railroads has been found, because it has been SCIENCE: 55 found that railroads develop and enrich the country ; that the money spent for railroads comes back, and comes back a hundred-fold. The money for the education which I propose will be found when the people shall become convinced, that, invested in improving the brains of the people, — the motive power of all motive powers, — it will be more profitable than money invested in railroads or in any other enterprise whatever ; that the money spent will come back, and come back a hundred-fold. If in 1830 any one had predicted that in 1888 we should have our present mileage of railroads at its present cost to the country, he would have been laughed to scorn, because such an expenditure for highways must then have appeared absurd to the average man. But we spend all this money for highways, and thrive by it. The figures in ‘ Higher Ground’ are only tentative, re-adjustable at every point. Any public body into whose hands the practical working should fall would of course cut its garment according to the cloth on hand. My proposition is, that children shall be paid for going to school from twelve to twenty years of age, and that the amount to be paid for the eight years shall be $1,200. But if only money enough could be raised to keep them at school till eighteen, then the pay must cease at eighteen. That would require, in all, only $575 for each child. If at first only enough could be raised to keep the children at school till sixteen, then sixteen must be the limit. That would require, for the four years of each child, only $250. Even then the gain of the people in intelligence and efficiency would be immense, and the expense for the four years would be $250 only, instead of $1,200 for the eight years. My proposition is, that all children from twelve to twenty years of age shall be paid for going to school substantially what they could earn out of school: at the age of twelve to thirteen, $50; thirteen to fourteen, $75; fourteen to fifteen, $100; fifteen to six- teen, $125 ; sixteen to seventeen, $150; seventeen to eighteen, $175 ; eighteen to nineteen, $225; nineteen to twenty, $300. This, I think, would keep the children at school, and we should have an intelligent and efficient population, such as the world has never yet seen. Perhaps a trifle less annually would keep the chil- dren at school. I should be in favor of the smallest amount possi- ble that would accomplish the object. But of course this could not begin all at once all over the country. If the proposition shall ever be carried out anywhere, it would take years and years after the beginning before all parts of the country would adopt it. All the children would not go. Wealthy people would still prefer to send their children to private schools; perhaps some Catholics, not many, would persuade themselves that the supposed interests of their children in the next world demand their absence from the American public school; and there are perhaps people among us so shiftless or degraded that they would not send their children to school, no matter what the inducement. It is not necessary that I should be able to show that we could to-day provide for a state of things which can only be brought about after years of agitation. The state of things which I advo- cate can only come about gradually. The people will have to be convinced. Schoolhouses will have to be multiplied, and these things can only be done slowly and gradually, That the tax would be sufficient to begin with in large cities, there can be no doubt; and, as wealth increases more rapidly than population, the proceeds of the tax would tend constantly to come nearer being sufficient than it would be to begin with. In discussing matters of taxation, the Chzcago Trzbune said a few days ago that there are five hundred millionnaires in New York City: there were probably not fifty millionnaires in New York twenty years ago. There are prob- ably one hundred millionnaires in Chicago to-day : twenty years ago there were not five. Smaller fortunes are increasing in proportion. Wealth is increasing much more rapidly than population. No man can tell what the succession-tax would yield: it can only be found out by experiment. Did we not lower the tariff in 1883 to decrease the surplus, and then find that we had a steadily increasing surplus? I do not pretend to be able to calculate what the succession-tax would yield in the whole country, nor in any one state or city. On p. 44 of ‘Higher Ground’ I gave it as an estimate that the tax would yield annually from three to six millions in Chicago, and from twenty to fifty millions in New York. To this estimate I still adhere. The many large estates falling in from 56 time to time show it to be a moderate one. The tax would enable us to begin, and every year it would prove more nearly adequate: every few years we should be enabled to take in children of a more advanced age. The Vew Vork Times of Jan. 13 givesa summary of the comptroller’s report of the State finances for 1887. The collateral inheritance law yielded for the year $561,716.23. The comptroller says it might easily in some years produce a million, and yet under that law no lineal inheritance is taxable. The greater part of the money came from eight estates: estate of Henrietta A. Lenox, New York, $76,534.27; estate of Mary J. Mor- gan, New York, $64,201.64; estate of Cornelia M. Stewart, New York, $61,232.03; estate of Calvin Burr, New York, $39,711.46; estate of Hannah Enston, Kings County, $40,068.20; estate of Sarah Marrow, New York, $14,077.35; estate of Mary E. Miller, Orange County, $15,796.65 ; estate of B. F. Bancroft, Washington, $10,419.60. This tax, being on collateral inheritances only, reaches only a small number of successions. I speak of the apparent absurdity of subsidizing parents to keep their children at school. Several of my friends are at the present time supporting boys in manual-training schools. These friends of mine are not doing any thing absurd, are they? No, they are doing an excellent thing for the boys. Many colleges give aid and assist- ance to students. To do what I propose would be only doing what the colleges have always done, and are now doing, to the best of their ability,—helping indigent students to get an education. There is nothing absurd about that, is there? Why should it be absurd to do for all what it is wise to do for the few? Besides, the education itself would immensely accelerate the acquisition of wealth, just as the small beginnings of railroad-building from the thirties to sixties helped to accelerate the increase of wealth suffi- ciently to give us the railroad mileage of 1888. What the world has acquired in the way of knowledge would be known to all, instead of being known only to the few : all, instead of only the few, would have access to, and would utilize, the world’s stock of knowledge, and the difference this would make in the production of wealth cannot be estimated. Where there is now one millionnaire, there would be a thousand of them under the new state of things, and all the people would be in comfortable circumstances. That in- crease of knowledge brings increase of wealth must be clear to every one. If, instead of our present population, we had a land full of Russian Moujiks, or of people born in Spain or in Arkansas, _ we should not be troubled with a surplus. The education which I propose means that no child shall go through life in the raw state; that every child shall be a finished product ; and that society shall get upon every human being born the profit of the finished product, instead of such profit as there is in letting humanity go through life in the raw state, as it were. The world is wasting its knowledge by confining it to so few. It is as if a man were to leave his family a million, and provide that only a hundredth part of it should be put out at interest to produce income. We should call such a man foolish. Well, in like man- ner the world is stupid in confining knowledge to the few, and de- priving itself of reaping the benefit of the service of the many in their best estate. Say that a man has five children and $100,000, He can educate his children well, and leave them $80,000; or he can let them go to school till they are twelve years old, and then leave them $100,000. Can any sane person doubt which would be the better course for the children? Can &ny one doubt which course would be the more likely to preserve the estate? Can any one doubt which would be the more likely to increase it ? But the children whose education I advocate have not the money to enable them to be educated, and their parents have not the money wherewith to educate them. Must the rich educate the poor? I say yes; if the rich wish to live in comfort in a country governed by universal suffrage, they must do their share, and more than their share, to educate everybody. As I believe, the people who would pay the money would get a handsome return upon their investment, even those who should pay at the highest rate. Years ago I said, and I quote it here from Prof. C. M. Wood- ward’s recent book, ‘The Manual Training School,’ published by Heath & Co., — “The alternative before you is more and better education at greater expense; or a still greater amount of money wasted on SGlIENCE: [VoLt. XI. No. 261 soldiers and policemen, destruction of property, and stoppage of social machinery. The money which the training would cost will be spent in any event. It would have been money in the pocket of Pittsburg if she could have caught her rioters of July, 1877, at an early period of their career, and trained them at any expense just a little beyond the point at which men are likely to burn things pro- miscuously. It is wiser and better and cheaper to spend our money in training good citizens than in shooting bad ones.” The first requisite is to convince the people that the thing itself is worth doing. That done, the means to accomplish it will be found. The thing proposed ‘‘is not a largess to the recipient, but a natural measure of self-defence on the part of the government which educates.” I propose it as a measure for the welfare of the community, and the welfare of the community is the supreme law. Once established that it is the height of wisdom at all hazards and at any cost to bring the children into school and keep them there till the twentieth year, if necessary other means besides the succession-tax would be found to pay the expense. The $500 license-tax on saloons yields annually in Chicago nearly two mil- lions. It is a new revenue never before counted upon for munici- pal purposes. Before we had it we got along very well without it, and we could again do so. To what better use could the license money be put than to keep the children at school? And the tax might be doubled. Double our rate, and liquor-licenses would annually yield in New York City something like ten millions. Then there is the internal revenue derived from tobacco and whiskey, yielding annually over a hundred millions, which is every day in danger of being abolished because we have no use for the revenue. This tax, unless seized upon for education, is liable at any moment to be repealed. Its appeal would be a calamity. The tax bears heavily only upon vice and crime. No useful industry is hampered by it. There is not one single good reason why it should be re- pealed. To what better use could the proceeds of this tax be put than to be paid out for keeping the children at school? The whiskey and tobacco tax might be doubled, and nobody be the worse for it. It is low now in order that it may not produce too much revenue. If the revenue were needed for a good purpose, the tax might well be doubled and yield over two hundred mil- lions. In the sense in which I speak of the settling of the labor- troubles, they would be settled if we could get along without periodically employing soldiers to use force. The graduates of the manual-training school would be just that many people taken out of the labor-problem; and, if the number so taken out was suffi- cient, there would be no labor-problem left. Each individual trained to a degree to find an independent way for himself instead of relying merely upon the work of his hands to be directed by the brains of some one else, is to the extent of that individual a settling of the labor-troubles. The settling would operate as things did in Germany in the time of the first Napoleon. So long as German soldiers fired their guns at his command upon his enemies, he maintained his supremacy in Germany ; but when the Germans took to shooting at him and his, instead of for him and against his enemies, there was end of Napoleon's supremacy. Sufficient training, intelligence, and efficiency would make all our people for peace, and there would therefore be peace. The law- lessly disposed would be so few and lonesome that they would cease to riot. If I may be allowed an Irish bull, the lawless could be made to shoot the other way by being made so intelligent and efficient that they would refrain altogether from shooting. AUGUSTUS JABOBSON. Chicago, Jan, 24. Weather-Predictions. Ir Professor Hazen is willing to admit, as I infer from his letter in Sczence of Jan. 27, p. 49, that the Blue Hill predictions for last October give a higher per cent of success than his own when veri- fied by the unmodified original rules he sent me, it seems to me there is an end of the matter between us. I do not deny that better methods of verification of weather-predictions are wanted. All that I have ever claimed is, that the Blue Hill predictions, when verified by the Signal Service rules, in accordance with which they FEBRUARY 3, 1888.] were made, give a higher percentage of success than the Signal Service predictions for this vicinity. Professor Hazen made the predictions for the Signal Service during October; and if more ex- tended comparisons between his predictions and those of Blue Hill are of importance, why not compare the Blue Hill predictions with the similar predictions of the Signal Service, published in the same newspapers? The Blue Hill predictions were made for south- eastern New England, and I am perfectly willing that they should be verified for the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island in accordance with the published rules of the Signal Office (see chief signal-officer’s report for 1886). In making the Blue Hill weather (not temperature) predictions, the phraseology and definitions of the Signal Service have been closely followed ; and, if any of the readers of Sczemce care to extend the comparison, I will gladly furnish them with the past or future Blue Hill predic- tions as theyappear in the Boston papers, since I am confident that these, when verified in accordance with the published Signal Ser- vice rules, will give a higher percentage of success than the predic- tions of the Signal Service. When it is considered that the Blue Hill predictions are extended for nine hours longer in advance than those of the Signal Service made from the same telegraphic reports, and that less than one-third the telegraphic data at the command of the Signal Service are available at Blue Hill, it seems clear that by improved methods and more localized predictions the efficiency of the Signal Service could be greatly improved and its expenses reduced. During January the Blue Hill predictions will average something like fifteen to twenty per cent higher than the Signal Service predictions for this locality; and this seems of in- terest, since I understand that Professor Hazen, who is assumed to be one of the leading predicting-officers, made the Signal Service predictions for this month. H. HELM CLAYTON. Blue Hill Observatory, Jan. 30. Hybrid Diseases. IN a paper presented at the recent meeting of the American Pub- lic Health Association (Sczence, x. 289), Dr. E. M. Hunt of the New Jersey Board of Health brings out some original ideas about disease-germs, that are likely to prove misleading to persons whose knowledge of the subject is derived from the public press. The etiology of so many zymotic diseases is now under investigation by experts in bacteriology, that the general reader or practitioner who is not an investigator is severely taxed to keep track of the often conflicting and incomplete results; and an especial effort should be made to avoid unnecessary complication of the subject by the introduction of theories not based on a correct understanding of what is known or extremely probable. Excluding the protozoan claimed by Laveran and others as the cause of malarial fever, the moulds that occur in connection with certain local diseases of the ear, etc., and the Ac¢zzomyces of man and some other mammals, the active agents of common parasitic dis- eases that are at all credited are bacteria. One of the systems of classification now generally used recognizes four main divisions of lower plants below mosses and liverworts, —thallophytes, zygo- phytes, oophytes, and carpophytes, — beginning with the lowest. Bacteria fall by common consent into the first and lowest of these groups, —the protophytes. This group is a sort of omnzum gatherum for many things that cannot be placed elsewhere, and is chiefly known by negative characters, the absence of much evident structural differentiation, and of any form of sexual repro- duction, heading the list. This being the case, it would partake of dogmatism to make any very emphatic assertions about the plants that now find lodgement in it; yet it may fairly be said that no theory that rests upon the assumption of sexual processes in any of the protophytes is tenable. Hybridity is usually the result of sexual union between representatives of two more or less nearly related species, and in this sense is not only not known among plants of this group, but very improbable, since they have thus far given the best investigators no indication of even the simplest form of sexual union, — conjugation. The only other mode of hybridizing, if it really be such, corresponding to the formation of ‘ graft-hybrids’ among flowering plants, could come only from the fusion of indi- viduals of two species, and would amount to conjugation. It seems to me, therefore, that such a theory of hybrid diseases as SCIENCE. 57 Dr. Hunt has propounded is entirely untenable, and a very unfor- tunate addition to a literature already overcrowded with notions that others must eliminate. I fear that my friend Mr. Meehan wrote his opinion on lichens rather hastily, and perhaps without intending to have it given to the readers of Sczenzce, or he would scarcely have expressed the belief “that all lichens are hybrids between fungi and alge.” Botanists do not’ agree on the lichen question, any more than physicians do on the germ-theory of disease; but neither the fol- lowers of Schwendener, nor the old school, would be likely to advocate the hybridity that Mr. Meehan believes to be conceded. The rela- tionship of the two parts of a lichen, according to the Schwendener school, is merely that of association, either parasitic or symbiotic, and in no sense comparable to hybridization, while the advocates of lichen autonomy hold them for parts of one and the same indi- vidual. Realizing fully the advisability of excluding dogmatism from the discussion of all that pertains to sanitation, I have written this correction in no ex cathedra spirit, and I trust that it will not ap- pear to either Dr. Hunt or Mr. Meehan as any thing more than an effort to check the entrance of error into the discussion of one of the most important subjects that is prominently before the public. WILLIAM TRELEASE. St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 28. Color-Blindness. REFERRING to your comment in Sczezce of Jan. 27, I would say that I have always believed that the defect of color-blindness could be accurately described only by one who, like myself, is subject to the peculiarity. From an early age I have been aware of the trouble, and by my attempts to assign names to colors have often furnished my friends much amusement. I have made many efforts to correct the defect, and am convinced that any attempts to edu- cate the color-sense will result in no benefit to those who are really color-blind. There are two sets of colors which in my mind will always be hopelessly confused. The greens, browns, and reds comprise the first; and the blues, pinks, and purples, the second. None of these colors seem to me absolutely alike. The contrast, however, is not striking, and I should describe each of the three as different shades of the same color. Being near-sighted, I could not at a distance distinguish the blossoms from the leaves of a bed of scarlet geraniums. On ap- proaching, however, I could readily detect the difference, but should describe the flowers as darker than the leaves, though to my eyes somewhat similar in color. While riding through the fields of France, members of our party frequently exclaimed at the multitude of scarlet poppies in the grass. Though I looked with longing eyes, not a poppy did I see during the entire journey. Similarly I am unable to detect cherries upon the trees, or strawberries on their vines, unless quite near to them. Notwithstanding this con- fusion of green, red, and also of brown, I can, by the worsted test, detect a difference in all the shades of these three colors. If I at- tempted to assign names to the various hues, it would of course be mere guess-work. The neutral tints of a November landscape, too, possess great beauty for me. The green of the grass, the browns of the leafless trees or of the soils in adjoining fields, the sombre hues of the sky, are all pleasing to my eye. Such being the case, the term ‘color-blindness’ seems altogether a mis- nomer. The second set of colors I should describe as follows: pinks, blues, and purples are closely allied ; I should call them all blue. Pink seems a lighter, and purple a darker, shade of the same hue. But, as in the case of the first set, all variations of these three colors are readily manifest to my eye. It may seem too strange to be true, but I have frequently ar- ranged flowers into bouquets which have been perfectly satisfactory to those who are not color-blind. I have, of course, no means of determining whether a brilliant sunset is more charming to others than to myself. I fancy that my defect deprives me of very little of its beauty. i Although in the rainbow I can distinguish only the red, yellow, and blue, it is probably as attractive to me as to others. I have as 58 yet failed to find any one who can readily detect the seven primary colors. It is said of Dalton, from whom color-blindness was once named, that he could distinguish only the colors of blue and yellow in the solar spectrum. Dr. Mitchell tells of an officer who chose a blue coat and a red waistcoat, believing them to be of the same color; of a tailor who mended a black garment with a crimson patch, and puta red collar on a blue coat. Such mistakes seem quite as ridiculous to me as to others. Yellow and black I have never confounded with other colors. There is such a diversity in color-blindness, that it seems im- possible to determine the cause. I am convinced that it is a physical defect. The eye, as a mechanical instrument, has not been found at fault. The cause is undoubtedly due to some peculiarity of cerebral formation. Like the cause of left-handed- ness, which is due to unusual development of the right brain, color- blindness is due to a freak of nature. The education of the color-sense among the children of the primary schools has proved of great value in removing that uncer- tainty in distinguishing colors which of course may be found among most ignorant people, old or young. This has its parallel in the education of the ear to the appreciation of all the variations of the musical scale. But for one who is really color-blind, education can be of little avail in correcting the defect. W.B. HARLOW. Syracuse, N.Y., Jan. 27. A New Text-Book on Zoology. THERE can be no better evidence of the growing interest on the part of certain reading-classes of all ages, and the importance that is being daily attached to biological studies by school authorities and educators, than the ever-increasing demand for good text-books in zodlogy, and the frequency with which such volumes put in an ap- pearance. We now have before us a thoroughly revised edition of Steele’s ‘Fourteen Weeks in Zodlogy’ (New York, Barnes),—a little work that held its place with great popularity for ten years, and which has now been almost entirely rewritten by Prof. J. W. P. Jenks of Brown University, who is quite responsible for its present form. From the author of the work I learn that the volume in scope is principally designed for beginners in our high schools and acade- mies at the average age of fifteen to eighteen years, in which schools they have no special means for illustration. Moreover, to be effi- cient as a text-book, it is intended to be used only by a class of teachers who presumably possess quite a thorough knowledge of general zoology, drawing, dissecting, zodlogical aids and appli- ances, and kindred subjects. Taken as a whole, were this volume placed in the hands of such a teacher, and its chief aim to be to impart a notion of general zodlogy to a class of students of the average age mentioned, after faithfully following out its chapters for three or four months, we must believe that no better work has yet appeared having a higher claim to such an end. Its pages are crowded with beautiful cuts of the forms used in illustration of its text, which cuts and illustrations have been for the most part ad- mirably chosen; and, notwithstanding its unavoidable brevity, the subject-matter, as a rule, is presented in a manner calculated to in+ terest and instruct the student at every step. It seems to me, how- ever, that even in a work of this character its author should add a page to his preface, and explicitly state in words and figures and acknowledge to whom he is indebted for his illustrations. We find here numerous drawings of birds taken from Audubon and Wilson, and many others, without a word of such acknowledgment, and the oversight occurs throughout the work. We must believe that even young academical students should be taught that this is not the proper custom; but where an author meets with such material assistance, it should be duly noted. An excellent feature of the work consists in properly dividing and accenting the technical names to assist in their pronunciation ; while, on the other hand, a serious defect is evidenced in the absence of a ‘glossary of terms’ at the end of the volume. In the main, the classification adopted shows the impress of re- cent views in the premises ; but here, as much as anywhere else, it needs the explanation of a skilled teacher, as the student would gain but a very erroneous idea of the subject from this work alone, as no family nor generic lines are drawn. Take, for example, the SCIBIICE: (VOL. acl Nos 2am order Passeres, where lyre-birds, birds-of-paradise, finches, crows, and larks, follow each other in the order I have given them, with- out a single word of explanation as to their affinities. Then again we find the author at total variance with the leading authorities in placing the bats in the order /zsectzvora, without a word as to why such a step should be taken. Nor will he meet with full support in his order Bzana, containing only “ one genus and a single species,” and that species having “ the rank of a being whoisalone declared to have been created in the image of God” (p. 277). We have no scientific proof for this latter view. Beneath about half the figures we find given in parentheses each one’s proportionate size as compared with the living subject: we regret that this excel- lent idea was not carried out through the entire work, and it will be well for future text-books in zodlogy to adopt this plan. Writ- ten, as the author of this work declares it is, for a class of students as late as eighteen years of age, to my mind it exhibits another thoroughly fatal omission, for it has not a word to say of that great universal law pervading all nature and the world, which explains the very origin of organic forms and the relations of the living ones to those now extinct. Should a young man of eighteen years of age complete the course pointed out by this work, and yet be igno- rant of the law of evolution, I hold his zodlogical studies have been but poorly grounded. A companion work to the one under consideration on physics would be in the same case, had it omitted the law of gravitation. The object of a text-book in zodlogy for a class of students from fifteen to eighteen years of age should not have as its aim the en- deavor to teach the greatest number of names of animate objects, for at the present day that is a hopeless task, even were it a desir- able end. It should, on the other hand, undertake to make clear the general principles of biological classification; it should by a careful, detailed study of a few types, both vertebrate and inverte- brate, clearly point out the universality of morphological laws, then these two lessons should be combined ; next, it should be clearly shown the relation between living and extinct types, and finally, by a few clear examples, show the origin of certain forms, as the birds from reptiles, and the ancestry of the horse, and so on; allof which is far more comprehensible than a jumble of isolated facts uncon- nected by any known law. Such a course, properly expanded and illustrated by a competent teacher, will give a student at once a more intelligent appreciation of life and living forms; make him a better observer ; create in his mind a more healthy interest in the subject; and finally send him forth with a kind of stimulation and systematized knowledge which fits him to further pursue biological research, should it happen in any given case to be imparted to the mind of a student cast in the biological mould. R. W. SHUFELDT. Fort Wingate, N. Mex., Jan. 9. The Flight of Birds. Ir is with great diffiidence that I take part in a discussion partici- pated in by such eminent authorities as Professor Newberry and Professor Trowbridge, and it is with still more hesitation that I ven- ture to disagree with any opinions brought forward by either of these gentlemen. Nevertheless, I can but feel that undue stress has been laid upon certain facts, while others of equal importance have been overlooked or incorrectly stated. To a great extent the discussion hinges on the assumption that birds need some mechanical device to relieve the muscles of strain while soaring, —an assumption whose truth seems open to ques- tion, as many of the lower animals are capable of automatic mus- cular movements of very long duration. Among mammals the cetaceans are almost constantly on the move both by day and by night, while others rest in positions that seem to entail considerable muscular strain. Thus horses very frequently sleep in a standing posture, and the skunk and baboon have been observed to seek repose lying flat upon their backs, with all four legs stiffly extended in the air; a very good example of unrelieved muscular strain may be seen in the tail of the spider- monkey, whose prehensile power is sufficient to sustain the animal after life is extinct ; some birds, during their migrations, fly or swim for immense distances without stopping for rest, and there is very good reason for believing that many of the petrels keep on the FEBRUARY 3, 1888.] wing for days and nights together without intermission; many fishes require perpetual motion in order to preserve their equilib- rium, while other pelagic forms appear to be on the move for long periods of time without flagging, — all these cases necessitating oft- repeated movements, which call for far more serious strain on the muscles than the mere extension of the wings during the act of soaring. The strain on the extensor muscles at such a time can be but trifling, compared to the strain on the levators and depressors of such a bird as the albatross, whose weight of nine to fifteen pounds is supported by two levers of the third class, five to seven feet in length ; and yet no bird makes longer flights than this wanderer of the southern seas, who has no special device to keep his wings out- stretched. These instances are brought forward, not to disprove the fact that a device to ease the muscles in soaring may not exist, but to show that there is apparently not the slightest need for it. In regard to the interlocking of the primaries, which unquestion- ably takes place, is not this the result of their emargination, and consequent failure to glide smoothly over one another, rather than the end to be accomplished by this cutting-away of the feather to- ward the extremity ? This view of the case is borne out by the fact that the longer, more flexible ulnar border of the primary naturally gives at each stroke of the wing, thus catching in the radial portion of the feather immediately behind it, whether the bird wishes it or not. Moreover, during the act of soaring, the wing is expanded to its utmost, and the tips of the primaries widely separated, while in a fresh specimen of Buteo boreal’s no locking is possible until the wing is partially closed. This would seem to be conclusive as re- gards the importance of the locking of the primaries as an aid in soaring ; although there remain the facts that some birds who soar to perfection — such, for example, as gulls, cranes, storks, and the frigate-bird — do not possess emarginate primaries, while others, like some owls and flycatchers, have emarginate primaries but do not soar. Professor Trowbridge’s comparison of the wing to a flat card is hardly felicitous, and his statement that it would be in a state of unstable equilibrium but for the locking of the primaries would seem open to serious doubt. One absolute requisite of a wing is that the anterior margin should be rigid, and the posterior border flexible, —a requirement which is met toward the extremity of a bird’s wing by bringing the quill close to the radial margin of the feather, leaving a posterior pliable edge. Now, if the primaries are interlocked, a rigidity is created toward the ulnar border of the wing, which would thus become more card- like and unserviceable than if the primaries did not lock. A pertinent question that might be asked of Professor Trow- bridge, is, Why, if the “long primaries present a serious resistance . when a bird is soaring,” do all birds that soar or sail possess just such primaries, while the corresponding feathers in birds which do not soar are short ? One feature in the wings of birds pre-eminent for soaring abili- ties, e.g., the Vadturzde and Falconzde, has not been touched upon in this discussion, so far as I am aware; and this is the fact that when the wing is extended to its utmost, as it invariably is during soaring, the metacarpus and phalanges are not in line with the ulna, but are bent forward of it. By this arrangement some of the muscles and tendons that ordinarily act in flexing the wing are brought upon the dorsal surface of the bones, and thus have their power of flexion weakened, or possibly even made to aid in the au- tomatic extension of the wing. If, now, a bird with wings thus spread be so killed that there is no perceptible shock or nervous start, the bird may remain with outstretched pinions and sail gradu- ally downward, — exactly such a case as Professor Newberry de- scribes. In conclusion, I can but regret that I have no facts to ad- duce that will throw any light on the problem of flight, as it is far easier to find fault with any theory than to suggest a better, and purely adverse criticism must always seem more or less ungracious. FREDERIC A. LUCAS. Washington, D.C., Jan. 16. SCIENCE. 59) Binocular Combinations upon Disparate Retinal Points. EVERY one is familiar with the fact that Wheatstone and many subsequent investigators have explained the binocular perception: of solidity by the theory of the ‘fusion of images upon disparate points,’ as they are called, in the retina. They have generally denied the original possibility of a monocular perception of solidity and distance ; and hence, when certain plane figures were stereoscopi- cally combined, the apparent solidity of the resulting single figure suggested its explanation in accordance with what had previously been supposed of the mathematical relation between combination and convergence. Thus Wheatstone’s view may be illustrated by the following figure. It is well known that the stereoscopic combi- nation of these figures, although making a plane image only upom the retina and representing only a plane surface externally, never- theless produces the appearance of a solid body. Previous theories. of vision had maintained that single vision took place upon corre- sponding points of the retina, and double vision upon disparate points. Now, as the mathematical construction of the case would not allow the inner figures and lines to fall upon exactly corre- sponding points, the apparently single character of the image in stereoscopic combination was most naturally explained by saying that fusion took place upon disparate points ; and hence when the perception of solidity, or relatively different distances between the larger and smaller figures, uniformly accompanied this kind of fusion, it was naturally ascribed to that process as its cause. Whether such a fusion really takes place or not, has been hotly contested, and we wish here to present a few new considerations. to show that it does not occur, notwithstanding the strongest ap- parent evidence of our actual perception of it. To make the argument clear, a few words will be necessary upon what is meant by ‘ corresponding’ and ‘disparate’ points. As in-- dicated, they denote the points upon which respectively single and double vision takes place. But the second term has two very dis— Fic. 1, tinct applications, — one binocular, and the other monocular. It is- A A’ 4 PSS fo Ya ‘ / ‘ L a bod e [ a'b’ Aiemmate a teats rama We \ \ le |e B " Fic 2. this last fact and its implications which most investigators, and’ among them Wheatstone, seem to have ignored. But the impor- tance of taking it into account will be evident from the following considerations. Take the circles R and Z to represent the retinal surfaces of the two eyes. Divide each retina into halves by the vertical meridians 48 and 4’B’. Draw also the horizontal merid- ians in which lie the points a, 4,c,d,e, and a’, 0, c', a’, e' ; ¢ and c', at the intersection of the vertical and horizontal meridians, repre- sent the fovea centralzs of each eye. Now, the vertical meridian divides each eye into halves, that correspond to the opposite halves of the other eye. Thus we have what are called the nasal or inner, and the temporal or outer halves of the eyes. The nasal halves of each eye are said to ‘correspond’ to the temporal halves of the other eye. How this will appear can be seen by superimposing one circle upon the other; and the points a and 4 in the temporal half of the left eye, Z, will coincide with @' and 4’ in the nasal _ half of the right eye, R ; and @and ¢ in the nasal half of the left wilh coincide with @’ and e’ in the temporal half of the right eye. By 60 calling these ‘corresponding ’ halves, we mean that they have the same function of localization; that is, that they are constructed for seeing the same object, at the same point in space, at the same time, assuming a given state of fixation and the proper position of the object. Thus one image of an object falling upon a in the left eye, Z, and the other upon a’ in the right eye; or upon 4 in the left, and 6’ in the right eye; and so on, — will make the object to appear single and in the same place. Hence they are called ‘ correspond- ing’ points. But if one of the images falls upon a, and the other upon 4’ or any point between that and a’, which may happen ac- A B Fic. 3. -cording to the position of the external object, there will appear to be two objects. This is because all other points than a’ are ‘ dis- parate’ in relation to a. So with 4 and c, or c andd@. Thus, while every point in a temporal half is a ‘corresponding’ point to a given point in the nasal half of the other eye, it is ‘ disparate’ to all other points. This is the binocular use of the term. But since the temporal halves of the two eyes are non-corresponding halves, the points a, 4, d’, and é' are also ‘ disparate.’ Now, in the monocu- Jar retina all the points are ‘disparate’ in relation to each other ; that is, combination never takes place. Hence a, 4, c,d, and e, or a', b', c', d',and e’ are respectively ‘disparate’ in relation to each other monocularly considered. Then, since the temporal half of the right eye corresponds to the nasal half of the left eye, and the two -are thus identical in visual functions, @ and @’, or 6 and ¢’, are ‘ dis- parate ’ in relation to each other in precisely the same sense as a and d, or 6 and é, in monocular vision. This is the monocular use -of the term. Now, since fusion of images never takes place in monocular vision (say, when separate images fall upon a and 4, 4 and ¢, or a and d, and so on), it can never take place when the two images fall upon non-corresponding halves of the retina (say, both upon the temporal, or both upon the nasal halves; that is, upon 0 and d@’, a and a’, or and é’), any more than they would upon 4 and d@,a and d,oréand e,andsoon. The reason for this is plain. Each eye forms binocularly only half an eye, so that the temporal half of one is identical in function with the nasal half of the other. This being the case, the non-corresponding halves of the binocular eye form a monocular eye. Experiment will show this to be the case. Hence stereoscopic images falling both of them in the tem- poral, or both of them in the nasal halves of the binocular eye, will appear precisely as if one of them fellin the nasal and the other in the temporal half of the monocular eye, or as if both fell upon sep- arate points in any one half of the monocular eye. Thus the images in the temporal halves a, 4, and a’, e’, can no more combine than if they were a, 4, and d, e’. Hence a, d, a’, e’, are monocular- ‘ly ‘disparate ;’ so also d, 2, a’, 6’. Now, since monocular combi- nation of ‘disparate’ images never takes place, we can demonstrate that it can never take place in stereoscopic combination; at least, where the figures to be combined are such as Wheatstone’s original illustration represented: namely, two lines which indicate opposite inclinations to the median plane. This is shown in the following lines, where A and B, the upper ends of the lines, will fall upon temporal halves of the retina when C and D fall upon the fovea, -and yet fusion is as apparent as if it were real. The lower ends fall upon the nasal halves, and fusion is also apparent ; the total re- sultant being a line with the upper end nearer the observer than the lower, and apparently upright or at an inclination to the plane of the paper. But it is effected by non-corresponding halves of the eye. To illustrate this, take Fig. 4, 2 and Z representing the two eyes. Let and B represent two figures farther from the median line HF than Cand D. A and B may represent the upper ends of ‘the lines in Fig. 3, and Cand D the centres; both together forming SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. No. 261 a plane geometrical outline for a stereoscopic figure such as Wheat- stone employed. Take Z for the point of fixation before combina- tion, so that we may suppose A, B, C, and D to lie in the horopter. cand c’ are the fovee centrales; and when the eyes are fixated for an object at £, its two images will fall, one upon ¢ and the other upon ¢c’; while those of A will fall upon e and e’, of Bupon a and a’, of C upon dand d@’, and of D upon é and 4’. Now, a and a’, 6and 6, cand c’, dand a’, e and é’, being corresponding points, the several objects will be seen single while they are in the horop- ter; but the position of their images upon the retina must be no- ticed before indicating the effect of stereoscopic combination. The images of each object fall upon corresponding halves of the retina; but the images of 4 and B compared, also of C and D compared, fall upon non-corresponding halves of the retina. Now, in stereo- scopic combination the object is to make A and B, or C and JD, ap- pear to coincide respectively ; that is, appear upon the fovea. This may be done by converging or by diverging the eyes. But this can be effected only by fusing one image of A or C in the one eye with the image of B or D respectively in the non-corresponding half of the other eye. By convergence the fusion will be of images at present in the temporal halves; by divergence, of images in the nasal halves: that is, by the former combination, must be of extra- foveal, and by the latter of intra-foveal, images. a and 4, anda’ and e’, are extra-foveal, because they lie in the temporal halves: @ and e, and a’and 0’, are intra-foveal, because they lie in the nasal halves of the eyes. Now, if we converge the eyes so as to bring the image of C and J into the fovea, it is evident that the combination takes place only by what are extra-foveal images when the point of fixation is £&. Convergence to produce combination of C and ZD requires a new point of fixation in the median line at the intersection of the lines which represent the course of light from C to a’, and from D to 6. When this is effected, the foveze c and c’ are shifted, the former to 6 and the latter to d’, to receive the images at those points. But thus, while the images of C and D are fused in the D B A C E Fic. 4. e fovea, those of 4 and B still fall upon extra-foveal points as far from the new position of ¢ and c’ as ais from 4, and e’ from d’. But being both extra-foveal, they fall in temporal and therefore non-corresponding halves of the retina. In Wheatstone’s experi- ment, Fig. 1, these would represent the larger squares, and the ap- parent combination represented in the base of a visibly solid figure thus perceived is explained by ‘fusion upon disparate points.’ But being extra-foveal, and in the temporal or non-corresponding halves of the retina, these points are not binocularly, but monocu- larly ‘ disparate,’ and hence the fusion claimed for them is as im- possible as if it were claimed for the points @ and 4, or a and e, or FEBRUARY 3, 1888. | any two points in monocular vision. Images upon different sides of the fovea in monocular perception never combine, and are never supposed to combine. Now, supposing C and JD in the fovee ¢ and c’ by convergence, and keeping in mind the fact that the tem- poral half of the right eye in binocular perception corresponds to the nasal half of the left in monocular perception, the images of 4 and 8B, while they fall in non-corresponding halves, occupy positions visually the same as if they fell upon non-corresponding halves in monocular perception, the temporal and nasal ; and hence, superim- posing Z upon R, e’ would fall as far from the fovea in the nasal half as @ from the fovea in the temporal half of the left eye Z- that is, the images of A and B, aand 2, visually fall upon opposite sides of the fovea, and can no more combine than separate images in monocular perception. The same general result is obtained if we combine C and D by diverging the eyes; that is, by focusing the eyes in the median line beyond the point Z, or beyond the stereoscopic figures. The eyes are thus turned outwards, so that the fovea in each case must be shifted inward from c¢ to d, and from c' to 4’. Combination of C and D will thus be attained by intra-foveal images, — such as are intra-foveal while the point of fixation remained at Z. But when d and 6' are brought into their corresponding fovea, e and a’ still remain intra-foveal at distances from the fovea equal to that be- tween d and ¢, and a’ and J’. By the same argumentation as be- fore, it can be shown that the images of 4 and 4, respectively e and a’, cannot combine. Thus, being both intra-foveal, they fall upon points in the nasal halves of the two eyes. These are binocu- larly non-corresponding, and therefore monocularly complementary halves of the retina: hence falling upon e and a’ in binocular vision is the same as occupying opposite sides of the fovea in monocular vision, and so combination will be impossible. This shows the im- portance of observing what is implied by the term ‘disparate.’ As long as we conceive the term in its binocular application, there would be some reason for supposing combination upon them under the circumstances described. But adjustment by convergence and divergence, the former for extra-foveal and the latter for intra-foveal images, requires us to think of ‘ disparate’ in its monocular applica- tion ; and in that case we must either deny the possibility of combi- nation upon them, or abandon the whole theory which makes a nasal half of one eye correspond to a temporal half of the other; for, if ‘disparate’ points in monocular perception may admit of combination, a nasal half may correspond to a nasal half, and a temporal to a temporal half, of the retina. This has never been assumed to be possible. Of course, ‘ intra-foveal’ and ‘ extra-foveal’ are used with refer- ence to the vertical meridian, and not the horizontal meridian, as Fig. 4 would seem to imply. In the last figure 4 and Z represent positions relative to the vertical meridian of any objects in the tem- poral halves of the retina, and hence they may be above or below the horizontal meridian in which they really lie, according to the in- clination of the lines to the median plane. The modification for the nasal halves of the retina can be supplied by the reader. It is evident from this that this demonstration does not apply mathe- matically to Fig. 1, where the apparent fusion is of binocularly ‘disparate’ points, although, taken in the ¢ofa/ sense for /ocaléza- zzon, it will apply. But it is combination, not localization, that we are discussing. If the stereoscope is used to effect the combination, the perspec- tive noticed in convergence with the naked eyes is reversed, and is identical with that effected by the divergent movement to produce combination. The reason for this may be briefly stated. The partition between the lenses lies in the median line, and hence cuts off the extra-foveal images entirely. Combination has therefore to be effected by the intra-foveal. With this statement of the condi- tions, the argument could be carried out as before. But the reply to our position that stereoscopic combination upon ‘disparate ’ points must be impossible, will be the very plain one that it contradicts the facfs of actual vision; that we can actually see the combination to have taken place; and, since it cannot have been upon corresponding, it must have been upon ‘ disparate’ points. There are two replies to this, and, in addition, an impor- tant fact which explains the apparent anomaly. In the first place, the demonstration is mainly intended to show that the phenomenon SCIEN Ci 61 must be impossible if we still retain the ordinary theory in regard to the divisions of the retina and their functions. In the second place, experiment shows that our claim is correct: for, after long practice in combination by convergence or by divergence, those images which, according to construction, must fall upon disparate points, and which at first seemed to be single and to coincide, ap- pear double until they are brought into the fovea. This indicates that they were never really fused into one. Why, then, is the fusion so apparent to vision? The answer is, that inhibition had sup- pressed such portions of one or both images contending for fusion, that the resultant, made up of complementary elements, appears as a single image. After considerable practice, the reflex and auto- matic tendency is weakened, and inhibition correspondingly de- creases ; so that the images which before seemed single appear double, as the law of disparate points requires. Baltimore, Md., Jan. 4. J. H. Hystop. Bacteriology as a Study in Schools. THE subject of the study of bacteria, discussed by Professor Conn in a recent number of Sczemce (xi. No. 257), is one which de- serves more attention than it has attracted thus far, and I take the liberty of making a few suggestions which have presented them- selves to an investigator rather than a teacher, but which may prove useful to the latter. Let us call the subject ‘ bacteriology ’ for convenience’ sake, and drop the misleading expression ‘ germ- theory of disease,’ which has had its day. Weknow, as positively as we know that the earth revolves on its axis, that certain diseases in man and animals are caused by the invasion and multiplication of bacterial parasites. There is no theory about this. The phrase is misleading, because it states that all disease may be due to germs, which is manifestly untrue. There are several classes of students who would be greatly bene- fited by a careful study of bacteria in the laboratory. I. Students of general biology and physiology would gain by a few simple experiments, readily performed, a very clear insight into the great metabolic activity of life in general, of bacteria in particular. It would be easy to demonstrate the formation of soluble ferments related to pepsin and diastase; the production of soluble and insoluble pigments, and the effect of re-agents upon them; the relation of vital activity to oxygen as expressed by aerobic and anaerobic germs; the effect of bacterial growth on various substances, such as blood serum, gelatin, and milk; the resistance of spores to high temperatures ; the effect of disinfectants and antiseptics; the phenomena of phosphorescence, nitrification, and other equally interesting and instructive features of bacterial life. The habit of close observation and careful differentiation may be cultivated by the parallel study of two species as nearly alike as possible. All this, and more, can be done with bacteria obtainable at any time, from natural waters, from the soil, the digestive tract of mammals and other animals, from milk and various infusions. To impress the mind with the destructive effect of pathogenic forms, a rabbit, or mouse, or guinea-pig may be inoculated with some germ fatal to these animals, but harmless to man. Such a form, fatal to rabbits, is occasionally present in the mouth. The microscopic study of bacteria brings out facts of histo-chemistry, and features of the microscope itself hitherto scarcely known, which should be applied in ordinary histologic work. 2. There is another class of students who stand in need of such instruction. Much of the preparatory work of the student of medi- cine can and should be done at our higher institutions of learning. For instance, the admirable work done at Cornell University in preparing students for the study of medicine, of which I have per- sonal knowledge, has always tended to push students into the front rank at the medical schools. These have no time to spare to teach students how to dissect well, how to study anatomy or to acquire the methods underlying histologic work and chemical analysis, nor have they the time to teach bacteriology. Yet no one should graduate in medicine to-day who does not know something about the secret working of this miscroscopic world, who cannot reason with it in his practice, or recognize the different forms when a diagnosis may be based upon them. Our biological laboratories may do much to help the medical schools in this direction. The physician will then be equipped with healthier ideas concerning the ‘ germ-theory;’ 62 -and the adverse opinion still expressed upon it by many, which may be safely called the opinion of ignorance, will soon be heard mo more. Another class needs some knowledge of bacterial life. This in- cludes all, —the father, the mother, the teacher, the citizen. Who- -ever has charge of human life should know something of the nature of infection with its manifold ways, of the necessity of disinfection _and the means within reach, Education in such subjects is the -only means of strengthening our present lax and indifferent spirit with reference to the public health. For this third and largest -class a brief course of lectures, with demonstrations that will im- press firmly the reality of the vital force inherent in bacteria, would be amply sufficient. What is needed is a certain attitude, an intel- ‘ligent receptivity of the younger generations which will be favorable to all proper measures for the protection of public and private health, and which will promote in every way the study of the laws that underlie it. The teaching of hygiene is taking root rapidly and firmly in the -continental universities, and bacteriology is intrusted to such -chairs. Our own higher institutions are beginning to realize the need of such instruction. As yet we have not gotten far beyond muscle, but that is a very good beginning. Bacteriology, though inked to hygiene as a branch of study, should, for the time being, find its place without difficulty in the biological laboratory. THEOBALD SMITH. Washington, D.C., Jan. 23. Queries. 25, TREE TEMPERATURES. —In speaking with two farmers, seach of more than ordinary intelligence, one last winter and another this, on the subject of temperature, they asserted that a thermome- ‘ter hung against the trunk of a living tree of any size would not ‘register as low as if suspended (as one made the observation) from a wire clothes-line, and the other from a pine post. Is this a fact ? D. LICHTY. Rockford, Ill., Jan. 23. 26. THE EARTH’S ROTATION AS AFFECTING RAILWAY- TRAINS. — In Maury’s ‘Physical Geography of the Sea,’ edition 1855, p. 39, paragraph 43 reads as follows: “ Take for illustration a railroad that runs north and south. It is well known to engineers that when the cars are running north on such a road, their tendency is to run off the east side; but when the train is running south, their tendency is to run off on the west side of the track, i.e., always -on the right-hand side. Whether the road be one mile or one hundred miles in length, the effect of diurnal rotation is the same; and the tendency to run off as you cross a given parallel at a stated rate of speed is the same, whether the road be long or short, the tendency to fly the track being in proportion to the speed of the trains, and not at all in proportion to the length of the road.” Now, this article is quoted by many scientific authorities. It goes the yearly round of papers and periodicals. Isit true? To prove or disprove it, I have sent out a circular letter, to get from those familiar with railroads the facts on the subject. If itis true ona single-track road running north and south, with the same number of trains passing each way, the rails, and flanges of cars, not turned, would be equally worn. On double-track, the east rail north-bound, and west rail south-bound, would be most worn. Cars that were not turned would have their wheels and flanges equally worn; but ‘locomotives, if “‘ the tendency is always to the right,’’ would have their right-hand flanges most worn. To facilitate the inquiry, I ask a list of questions. The questions are not asked for any per- sonal advantage, but as of general scientific interest. 1. Do cars, when running north, havea tendency toward the east ? 2. Docars, when running south, have a tendency toward the west? 3. Have -any instances come under your observation that indicate, by any wear of rails, of journals, of boxes, of flanges, or any part of a rail- way equipment, that “a train going north hasa tendency to run off on the east side, but when the train is going south the tendency is to run off on the west side of the track’”’? 4. General remarks, with detailed description,— evidence fro or com from engines or rails. JOHN C. GOODRIDGE, JR. New York, Jan. 28. SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. No. 261 Answers. 21. GLOBULAR LIGHTNING. — Governor Talmadge of Wisconsin lived in a two-story log-house on a level prairie near Fond du Lac, a short distance from a ridge of limestone that rose abruptly from the prairie. The upper story of the house had two rooms, with windows and doors forming a straight line through the house, and also an entry or hall between the rooms. One afternoon, when the windows and doors were open to allow a draught of air through the rooms, a ball, apparently a foot in diameter, floated slowly in one window, past Miss Talmadge, through the hall, and probably out of the other window, as the servant-girl ran screaming from that room. About the same time a barn near the house was struck and consumed. I could learn nothing further that was definite from those who saw the ball, when I reached the house. T. MCDONOUGH. Montclair, N.J., Jan. 24. 22. WASP-STINGS. — I have read with interest the items recently published in Sczence on this topic. Forty years ago, when a lad at school in Killingly, Conn. (in that part of the town at present known as Putnam Heights), I learned from schoolmates that any wasps could be handled without danger if one held his breath. I saw the experiment successfully made by many of my fellows, and ventured to make it myself with like results. Since that time scarcely a year has passed without my repeating the trial on wasps that have come in my way. I have never been stung except when I have forgotten myself, and allowed myself to inspire or expire the breath. Sometimes, after throwing the wasp violently away, I have been stung, because it had clung to my finger, and, not observing it, I had breathed. Ordinarily I notice after an experi- ment a slight feeling of numbness on the part of my hand where the wasp has attempted to sting me. I am accustomed to judge by this feeling whether the wasp was one of the stinging kind. As to the cause, I do not know of any. But many scientific persons have unscientifically refused to believe my statements, or to test them by experiment, because I could not answer their question, ‘How do you account for it?’ Whether the forced suspension of breathing paralyzes the nerves near the surface of the skin, — whether it stops the capillary circulation near the surface,— or whether its effect is something altogether different, I do not know. Nor do I see exactly how a paralysis of the superficial nerves, or an influence on the surface circulation, would prevent the poison from giving pain after commencing respiration again, provided that the wasp has succeeded in piercing the outer layer of the skin: for if the poison is exuded from the stinger, as I have sometimes seen it, it would act effectively upon removal of the paralysis when breathing is resumed. But my experience seems to lead to the conclusion that the poison does not penetrate at all during the sus- pension of the breath, but is left on the surface of the skin, and produces only the effect of a faint numbness after its effects begin to be felt through the outer coating. I do not take up this subject as one who has conducted any careful scientific experiments on it. My account of the matter may, however, help, like former articles in Sczence, in interesting experts in physiology to make genuine scientific experiments. One may hope that something important will be discovered in regard to the effect of forced suspension of the breath upon the nerves of feeling, the capillary circulation, or the resistance of the skin to penetration. W. T. HARRIS. Concord, Mass., Jan. 29. 23. DROPS OF WATER. —In answer to E. J. Pond’s query in Sczence for Jan. 20, it seems to me that the phenomenon is explain- able in the same way as the related phenomenon of drops of water on a hot stove; viz., rapid evaporation causes a layer of vapor to surround the drop, and this, by its repulsive expansion, keeps the globule of liquid from touching the hot metal in the one case, and the surface of the water in the other. The small drops that fall from the oar-blade will float a short time before calescing, even when no wind is blowing; the fall through the air apparently set- ting up evaporation enough to bear up the tiny globule. I have seen them at night, when the air was perfectly still, gleaming like seed-pearls in the moonlight. When the wind is strong, much larger drops will be supported because of the rapid evaporation. C. M. WIRICK. Metropolis, Ill., Jan. 24. FEBRUARY 3, 1888. | SCIENCE BOOK-NOTES. —‘American Fishes,’ a popular treatise upon the game and food fishes of North America with especial reference to habits and methods of capture, by G. Brown Goode, will be ready March 1. The reputation of Professor G. Brown Goode, United States ‘commissioner of fish and fisheries, is a guaranty that the subject has been treated in a masterly manner, and with a close at- tention to detail, which will make this book the invaluable companion of every lover of fishing in all sections of our country. — The name of Mark Hopkins has for many years been famous in America for pro- found scholarship and practical wisdom. | Its honored bearer, the president of Williams ‘College, has passed away : and now his son, Mark Hopkins, jun., brings the name once more into favorable public attention as the author of a brilliant new novel. It is a story of American life in Paris and Nice, with picturesque Russian and French accessories, and evinces a wonderful story-telling faculty and cosmopolitan spirit. It appears in Feb- ruary from the press of Ticknor & Company. —The genuine ‘Memoirs of Garibaldi,’ written by himself, and extending to 1874, were to be published by Barbéra last month. —Charles F. Heebner, 5 Gold Street, New York, has prepared and published a manual of pharmacy and pharmaceutical chemistry. — Another of Prof. N. S. Shaler’s articles on the surface of the earth appears in Scribner's Magazine for February under the title of ‘ Volcanoes.’ Among the illustrations are a number of very picturesque views of the great eruption in the Sandwich Islands, which have never before been engraved. — Novello, Ewer, & Co., New York, an- mounce that they will issue in the spring, pro- vided the number of subscriptions justify the venture, a review of the New York music season of 1887-88, by Mr. H. E. Krehbiel. — Henry Carey Baird has issued this year in pamphlet form another series of brief tracts on some economic questions, which were printed in various journals from 1885 to the present ; also an argument of Henry Carey Baird, chairman of a committee ap- pointed by a public meeting in Philadelphia, ‘before the Committee on Ways and Means, March 9, 1876, in opposition to the issue of $500,000,000 30-year 44 per cent gold bonds for the refunding of an equal amount of 5-20 ‘bonds; and ‘Two Roads,—the One lead- ing to Civilization, Prosperity, and Happi- ness; the other, to,Barbarism, Rebellion, -and Societary Anarchy,’ being an open let- ter to the President of the United States and Mr. ex-Speaker Carlisle. — Messrs. T. Y. Crowell & Co. announce two new books by Tolstoi. The first contains a number of his fascinating short stories for ‘children, rendered from the original by Nathan Haskell Dole. Crisp, quaint, and -artistic, dramatic and tender, often with a -quiet touch of humor, always with a moral, not preached nor obtrusive, but which ap- peals to the simplest understanding, these fables and stories show Count Tolstoi in a new and ” s P SCIENCE, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. SupscripTIons.—United States and Canada, $3.50 a year Great Britain and Europe, $4 a year Science Club-rates (in one remittance). 1 subscr. mn 2 T Yl --+ eee eeee 3 CO! SeAiisovce “ 4 I yr ADVERTISING RATES: I page r time $20 00 Last page 30 00 34 page I time ease ape IO 00 Lower half of front page . . . . .- 12 00 Reith Gio a 0.0 0 7 00 For small adyertisements the rate will be 6 cents per agate line. The following discounts are allowed on yearly con- tracts: — 1,000 lines 10% PHOOO NINES = 56 9 0.00 15% GOREISS <6 0 6) 5 0 0 ob 0 68 0 0 ERAS Advertisements must be acceptable in every respect. Copy received until Wednesday, 10 A.M. SCIENCE ts sent free to those who advertise in it, as long as advertisement continues. A TEMPORARY BINDER for Sczence is now ready, and will be mailed postpaid on receipt of price. Cloth - - Half Morocco - 50 cents. 75 cents. This binder is strong, durable and elegant, has gilt side-title, and allows the opening of the pages perfectly flat. Any number can be taken out or replaced without disturbing the others, and the papers are not muti- lated for subsequent permanent bind- ing. Filed in this binder, Sczezce is always convenient for reference. N. D. C. HODGES, SCOTT’S EMULSION of Pure Cod Liver Oil, with Hypophosphites, is a combination of two of the most valua- ble remedies in existence fir the cure of Consumption and all Wasting Con- ditions ; is more generally recommend- ed and used by Physicians than any known remedy ; it gives most satisfac- tory results, and tones up the system ; and when the Consumptive has wasted away and loses hope, the Emulsion will speedily check the ravages of this terrible disease, and restore the sufferer to good health and happiness. This is equally true in regard to Rickets in Children, or Marasmus and Anzemia in Adults, and all impoverished conditions of the blood ; and especially desirable for Colds and Chronic Coughs, as it will cure them more quickly than ordi- nary Specifics used, Palatable as milk. Sold by all Druggists. MAP-MAKING. All publishers or others de- siring to have maps _ made, either from relief plates or by lithograph, should write to us for estimates before placing their orders elsewhere. Any work entrusted to us will be carefully made under the super- vision of our geographical edit- or, Dr. Franz Boas. N. D. C. HODGES, Publisher of Sczence, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. BAakGAIns IN BOOKS, AUTOGRAPHS, ETC. 47 Lafayette Place, New York. St., Na ee Free POREAINE LIBRE Autor JOHN HASTINGS= = =A=R=HART= SJOS= TRIPP, Prest. GenManadger, VPrestt. NG AKG; FOR ¢ AS NQ ING BRANCH AT 728-CHESTNUT ST: @ PS PHILADELPHIA: PAp 4 LLUSTRATIVE AND ADVERTISING URPOSES 22253 SENN) Ah NRO 67-7)-ParK Paces (NEW YORK: . J Jo fie FRIDAY, FEBRUARY to, 1888. THE ANNUAL REPORT of the New York State Department of Public Instruction has been laid before the Legislature by Superin- tendent Draper. It contains some very interesting statistics and observations. It appears that the department expended during the year, $14,461,774.94, and this sum does not include the payment to Cornell University, the expenses of the regents, or the appropria- tions to academies; so’that even this enormous sum does not fully represent the State expenditure for common schools. Over 31,000 teachers were employed, and only 5,821 of them were males. The average annual salary of a teacher is, in the cities, $687.12; in the towns, $262.44. The number of children of school age was 1,763,- 115, and the total enrolment was 1,037,812. The average attend- ance was only 625,610. The superintendent points out that the uneducated class is increasing, and that the attendance in the schools does not keep pace with the growth of the population. The shortcomings of the present compulsory Education Act are pointed out, and some excellent suggestions are offered as to the best way to remedy the difficulty. On the subject of manual train- ing, Mr. Draper seems to be conservative, but still open-minded, and ready to recommend whatever is proven to be desirable. He says, “There has been much discussion during the year relative to the introduction of manual training as a regular branch of public- school work; and several cities, notably New York and Albany, have undertaken a thorough trial of the experiment. It is much to be hoped that it may prove a wise undertaking. There will hardly be two opinions as to the advantages of industrial training, but it must be demonstrated, upon actual trial, that it can be made a part of our common-school work with advantage to pupils, without detracting from the old-fashioned and essential work, . . . before it should be generally taken in hand by the school authorities. The experiments which have been entered upon will be watched with much interest. The test will be a severe one, but it must be met successfully, by a trial in good faith, before the already over- full courses of study in the schools should everywhere be opened to admit what is commonly called industrial training. There is a common misapprehension in this connection. Manual training need not be confined to carpentry work with boys, or making aprons and dresses with girls. Free-hand or industrial drawing may train the hand and the eye more effectually than handling a saw or a needle. It is easily taught, it is inexpensive, and it is practicable. It is the best possible preparation for further manual work. Every school in the State may undertake this without difficulty, and with good promise of excellent results, and then safely wait for the ver- dict of those who are further experimenting upon the subject... . The mission of the public schools is to best prepare the greatest possible number of children for the activities of life, for social and industrial relations, and for the responsibilities of citizenship under such a government as ours. The few must not be favored at the expense of the many. The beginners must have the most care and the best work. What is done must be practical. A philosophy is of small use unless it materializes. Children must be evenly edu- cated in all directions. Just what shall be taught in detail, must depend upon what, in a practical way, promotes the end for which the schools are maintained at public and general expense.’ After a survey of the field of educational work, Mr. Draper is able to ex- press a favorable judgment on what is being done, and concludes thus; ‘There seems to be unmistakable promise of an educational re-organization and revival in this State. Public occurrences during the year have forced the subject upon the attention of the people. Our supervisory officers and teachers are coming more and more to realize the importance, as they are striving more and more ear- nestly to accomplish the organization of a comprehensive, symmet- rical, and harmonious State educational system, in which the dis- trict schools, the union schools, the high schools, the academies, the normal schools, and the colleges and universities, shall have their appropriate place, and shall not rival or antagonize, but ar- range their courses of instruction so as to support and supplement each other, and work intelligently together for a common and beneficent purpose. The fact must be hailed with universal and unfeigned satisfaction among all our people. The promise must become a realization, if our magnificent commonwealth would maintain her foremost position in the sisterhood of States.” THE DEATH PENALTY. Ir will be remembered that the Legislature of the State of New York in 1886 passed an act providing forthe appointment of a com- mission “‘ to investigate and report at an early date the most humane and practical method known to modern science of carrying into effect the sentence of death in capital cases.’ The commission, consist- ing of Elbridge T. Gerry, Matthew Hale, and Alfred P. Southwick, has just made its report to the Legislature. Immediately after its appointment, the commission met, and carefully considered the gen- eral outlines of the subject, and also examined the entire criminal law, from its earliest history down to the present time, as to the principles upon which the infliction of capital punishment was based, the methods of execution and the reasons therefor; and in its report, which consists of a pamphlet of one hundred pages, it gives a history of the law, beginning with that of Moses. Let- ters were sent to sheriffs, physicians, and judges, requesting their opinions as to the present modes of punishment, and inviting sug- gestions. To these letters two hundred answers were received, and, after their perusal and a careful study, the commission decided that electricity was the best means for effecting capital punish- ment. The advantages claimed for electricity are, that death is instan- taneous upon its application, and that resuscitation is impossible. For the administration of electricity toa criminal, all that would be essential would be a chair with a head and foot rest, in which the condemned could be seated ina semi-reclining position. One elec- trode would be connected with the head-rest, and the other with the foot-rest, which would consist of a metal plate. ‘The expense of such a chair would not exceed fifty dollars. If the current of electricity is supplied from the electric-light wires, there would be but slight expense incurred to make the connection from the chair with the wires on the outside. An independent application would cost between two hundred and fifty and five hundred dollars. The commission concludes its report with the following recom- mendations: that the death penalty must be inflicted by causing to pass through the body of the convict a current of electricity of sufficient intensity to cause death, and the application of the current must be continued until the convict is dead. The execution must take place within the walls of the State prison designated in the warrant, or within the yard or enclosure adjoining. It shall be the duty of the warden to be present at the execution, and to invite the presence of a justice of the Supreme Court, the district attorney, and sheriff of the county in which the conviction was had, together with two physicians and twelve reputable citizens. Besides one, or, at most, two clergymen, and seven assistants or deputy-sheriffs, no persons other than those mentioned shall be permitted to be present. Immediately after the execution, a post-mortem examina- tion of the body of the convict shall be made by the physicians 64 present at the execution, and their report in writing, stating the nature of the examination made by them, shall be annexed to the certificate, signed by all the persons witnessing the execution, that the sentence was duly carried into effect in accordance with the requirements of the law. After the post-mortem examination, the body shall be delivered by the warden, for the purposes of dissec- tion, to some public hospital or incorporated medical college within the State ; or the body may be interred in the graveyard or ceme- tery attached to the prison, with a sufficient quantity of quicklime to promptly consume it. In no case shall the remains be delivered to any relative or friend; and no account of the details of any such execution, beyond the statement of the fact that the convict was, on the day in question, duly executed according to law at the prison, shall be published in any newspaper. EXPLORATIONS IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA, 1886. THE government of the Dominion of Canada, as well as those of the several provinces, are actively engaged in explorations and surveys, and a large amount of material is continuously being added to our knowledge of British North America. In the year 1886 work was in progress in all parts of the Dominion. In British Columbia Mr. A. Bowman continued his explorations in the Cariboo district. He left Victoria on the 23d of June, ac- companied by Mr. James McEvoy as geographical assistant, and on July 3 the party was ready to start into the field. While in 1885 the roads and trails were measured, and the centrally situated mountains were occupied as triangulation stations, geological re- searches being subordinate to geography, in 1886 great attention was paid to geology. The Goose Creek Mountains and the Selkirk Range, where there are no trails, were traversed with shoulder- packs, relying on the rifle to a considerable extent for supplies. A micrometer measurement of the great Quesnel Lake was carried out, with the aid of alarge Chinese boat andan Indian canoe. Bear and Swamp River Mountains and the Dragon Creek Mountains were ascended with a single pack-horse, relying on the axe for progress, instead of a trail. The geographical work was completed by occu- pying with the transit all the necessary outlying stations, and by measuring with the steel tape two independent base-lines, which will be used as the foundation of the whole of the work. Farther east, in the Rocky Mountains, Mr. R. G. McConnell has continued previous work in the vicinity of the Canadian Pacific Railway. Work was commenced on the 24th of May, at the gap of the Bow River, and during the course of the summer all the sub- ordinate ranges lying between that point and Gold City were ascended and examined. Although the work was principally geo- logical, our knowledge of the topography of the region was consid- erably increased, a number of sketches and cross-bearings having been taken from the summits of most of the mountains ascended. In the district between the Bow and the North Saskatchewan Rivers, J. O. Tyrrell and D. B. Dowling were exploring. Here geology was also the prime object of the expedition; but inciden- tally the limits of prairie and wooded country in that district have been determined, and careful barometric readings have been taken at numerous points throughout the area examined, in order to lay down on the map approximate contour-lines. A. C. Lawson continued his researches on the country east of the Lake of the Woods, principally mapping Rainy Lake and the ad- jacent territory. The main achievement of the season of 1886 was the connection of the township surveys on Rainy River by way of the Manitou canoe route with the Canadian Pacific Railway, and of the canoe route from Lake of the Woods to Rainy Lake. Of great importance is A. P. Low’s and J. M. Macoun’s survey of Berens River and Deer Lake. On the 28th of May the mouth of Berens River, on Lake Winnipeg, was reached. Here, having purchased canoes, the season’s work was commenced. From its mouth the Berens River was found to trend for one hundred and two miles south of east to Family Lake. Throughout this distance its course is broken by numerous small falls. At Family Lake the river bends sharply to the north, and the survey line runs in a slightly north-of-east direction to the height of land, passing through several lakes. Here the party reached Severn River by a short portage, and followed the stream in a north-east course. On SCIEN CE: [Mor 25; = No: W262 the 19th of June, Deer Lake, which was in part surveyed by Coch- rane in 1882, was reached. Descending its outlet for one hundred and seventy-five miles, another large lake was reached, the shores of which were covered with a fair growth of timber. This is called Favorable Lake. Following the river, running out of it for one hundred miles, a larger lake, called Sandy Lake, was entered. Af- ter one hundred and fifty miles more, Severn Lake was reached, whence the party proceeded to the Hudson Bay post on Trout Lake, and down Fawn and Severn Rivers to Fort Severn on Hud- son Bay. The party then proceeded along the coast to York Fac- tory, and returned, ascending the Hayes River route, to Norway House. ) Another extensive journey was accomplished by Dr. Robert Bell. After a brief visit to Manitoulin Island, he went to Sault Ste. Marie, where he hired six voyagewrs for his northern exploration. These, and the outfit of the expedition, were conveyed to Wabi- goon Tank, on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and hence trans- ported over a portage to Sandy Lake, from which the expedition was to start. Leaving the portage on the 6th of July, the general course of the route was north-eastward towards Cape Henrietta Maria, on Hudson Bay. The party first proceeded to Lonely Lake by way of Minnetakie Lake and its outlet. Having descended the upper part.of the Albany River, Bell crossed the country north- ward to the Attawapishkat River, which he descended to the sea. Then he coasted southward on the west side of James Bay until the Albany River was reached. He ascended this river, and its tributary the Kenogamin River, to its source, whence he reached the Canadian Pacific Railway. The whole course from Long Lake to the junction of Albany and Kenogamin Rivers, with the excep- tion of the coast of James Bay, was surveyed. The distances were ascertained by a boat’s log, or by the time occupied in traversing them at a known speed, while the bearings were taken by compass. Observations for latitude were made almost every day, and the variation of the compass was also frequently ascertained. The following part of Dr. Bell’s description of his journey is of general interest, as it contains much new information : — “On arriving at the Attawapishkat, I left my stores and large canoe in charge of one man on an island which I called Nolin’s Is- land, and proceeded with the other men to examine the upward course of the larger stream for some distance previous to descend- ing it to the sea. At about eleven miles above Nolin’s Island we reached the lowermost lake of the Attawapishkat, which, the In- dians informed me, bears the same name as the river itself. It lies diagonally across the course of the river, and has a length of about nine miles from south-west to north-east by four miles from south- east to north-west. Two miles above Attawapishkat Lake we en- tered a beautiful lake of much larger size, which, having as yet no distinctive name, I propose to call Lake Lansdowne, in nonor of the governor-general of the Dominion. This lake proved to meas- ure about thirteen miles from south-east to north-west by about ten miles from south-west to north-east, and it is the largest sheet of water connected with the river. It contains many large islands, and is much indented with bays. The surrounding country is more or less undulating and hilly, and thus affords a pleasing contrast to the level and monotonous character of nearly all the rest of the region explored during the season. The commencement of the upward continuation of the Attawapishkat River is found in the south-western bay of Lake Lansdowne. This part of the river is described by the Indians as being broad, having, for the most part, a sluggish current, and expanding occasionally into small lakes. “The Attawapishkat River proved to be somewhat smaller than the Albany, which is not far from the size of the Ottawa above the capital. It descends at an almost uniform rate all the way from Lake Lansdowne to the sea, —a distance of several hundreds of miles. In this distance we did not require to make a single portage, and, from the description of the river above the lake, it would appear to be navigable without portages almost to its source, which has prob- ably an elevation of more than one thousand feet above the sea, Where it flows over the limestone country it is broader and shal- lower than in the higher parts of its course. “The seacoast between the Attawapishkat and Albany Rivers is very low and uniform in outline, and without indentations» The water is so shallow that we could touch the bottom with our canoe- FEBRUARY 10, 1888.]| paddles at from half a mile to one mile from the shore. In order to pass the bowldery reefs, which extend from the shore north of the Albany, we were obliged to go so far out from the land that the tops of the trees were barely visible at the highest places. “ A careful track-survey of the Albany was made from its mouth to The Forks, which, with that of the upper part, also made during this season, when plotted, will enable me to map the whole course of this river, an actual survey of the intermediate portion having been made by myself in 1870. This river possesses additional impor- tance from the fact of its constituting part of the northern boundary of the Province of Ontario.” Dr. Bell’s assistants, Messrs. Macmillan and Murray, made a track-survey of part of the Albany River, leaving Bell’s party at the lowest point reached by him on the Albany River. E. Coste completed, with the assistance of J. White,a map of the Madoc and Marmora region, Ontario. We can only mention the surveys of R. W. Ells in the Eastern Townships, near the bound- ary of Maine, and L. W. Bailey’s and R. Chalmers’s work in New Brunswick. Of no less importance are the surveys of the technical branch of the Department of the Interior, under the direction of the surveyor- general, Capt. E. Deville. A number of surveys were made near the Canadian Pacific Railway. Otto J. Klotz was put in charge of the survey of the Canadian Pacific Railway from the summit of the Rocky Mountains to Revelstoke on the Columbia River. In his re- port will be found an interesting table of elevations of mountain- peaks and a description of the country adjacent to that part of the railway. William Ogilvie was engaged in astronomical observa- tions for determining the longitude of Kamloops. J. J. McArthur made an important topographical survey of those regions adjacent to the Pacific Railway which were not explored by Dr. G. M. Daw- son on his reconnaissances of the Rocky Mountains. Fred. W. Wil- kins was put in charge of an exploratory survey of Lake Winnipeg, of which he made a complete circuit. He gives the length of the lake as two hundred and seventy miles, its width ranging from two to sixty miles. He describes the lake as shallow, rough, and stormy, and navigation as extremely difficult and dangerous. The east coast is studded with reefs, rocks, and rocky shoals. The west coast, though having deep water in some places, is also very shal- low, but its coasts are sandy and muddy. Besides this, numerous township and road surveys were made. In 1885 the country adjacent to the Banff Hot Springs on the Pacific Railway was reserved for public use, and during the last year it has been surveyed, and roads are constructing which will make accessible the numerous sights of this Canadian National Park. In addition to the reservations at Banff, four mountain parks were reserved in 1886, — Mount Stephen and its environment, Mount Sir Donald, taking in the famous loop of the railway, Eagle Pass, and the amphitheatre at the summit of the Selkirk Mountains. The Department of Marine was not less active in exploring the little-known parts of the Dominion. We reported on the third Hudson Bay expedition, under Lieut. A. Gordon, in No. 252 of Sczence. Commander J. G. Boulton was actively engaged in car- rying on his surveys in Georgian Bay and North Channel, the re- sults of which are published in charts of the British Admiralty, and in the ‘Georgian Bay and North Channel Pilot,’ which contains much interesting information on those waters. The Indian Department was engaged in surveying and laying out reserves for various tribes, but principally for those of British Columbia ; and the descriptions of the reserve commissioners are of some interest. The provincial government were busily engaged in extending the surveys of the crown lands. The reports and descriptions of the provincial land surveyors abound with information on the town- ships they surveyed and divided, and we can only point out a few of the more important reconnaissances of outlying regions. In the Province of Ontario, A. Niven surveyed the outlines of seven town- ships adjacent to Lake Temiscamingue, in the Nipissing district. He found nearly the whole of the outline to be good farming land, the country level and free from stone. Another reconnaissance was made between Rainy Lake and the 4oth parallel, from which it appears that most of the country is rough and broken, with occa- sional valleys of good land. SCIENCE: 65 In the Province of Quebec, W. A. Ashe madé a survey of the Temiscamingue region, and his report on this country agrees with that of A, Niven, who surveyed those parts belonging to Ontario. C. E, Forgues visited the numerous streams emptying on the north- ern coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and found that they yield a considerable amount of salmon. The exploration and colonization of the outlying districts, which were considered of no value whatever a short time ago, are progress- ing rapidly. Railways and colonization roads are being built and pushed forward in all parts of the country, and the newly opened districts becoming rapidly settled. As our knowledge of Canada makes rapid progress, so the sci- ence of geography has been gaining many friends, and geographi- cal problems are discussed by many societies. It is the subject of many papers read before the Royal Society of Canada; and among them, Capt. E. Deville’s paper on the best projection for maps of the Dominion of Canada takes a prominent place. The Geographical Society of Quebec publishes in its Transactions a considerable amount of interesting information, and the associations of the Dominion Land Surveyors and those of the Provincial Land Sur- veyors of Ontario discuss many matters of geographical interest in their annual reports. Dr. F. Boas. MENTAL SCIENCE. What the Will Effects. UNDER this head Professor James (Scrzbner’s Magazine, Febru- ary, 1888) discusses the processes of voluntary action from the point of view of the ‘new psychology.’ The discussion is in so many respects characteristic of the rejuvenating interest with which this point of view invests the topics that have always occupied the thoughts of reflecting people, that a somewhat full account of the article will be given below, in the hope of inducing those interested in this science to read the original. The point of advance in the ‘new psychology" of the will that Professor James regards as of most value is its reference of all ac- tivity to the type of reflex action. The steps between the applica- tion of the stimulus and the accomplishment of the re-action may be short and simple, or they may be long and intricate. I may wink instantaneously at a threatened blow, or I may take a long time in deliberating how to act upon the receipt of a momentous letter. In either case the psychic process, which in the most highly developed form becomes conscious thought, is regarded as a means towards an end,—the action, the conduct. Life is an adjust- ment to the environment, and the new environment is ever develop- ing in complexity and variability of the adjustments that it makes necessary. A certain kind of these adjustments are usually singled out for separate treatment under the term ‘ voluntary actions ;’ but the doctrine now generally accepted is that this class of acts has been evolved from the involuntary acts. The distinction is one of degree of complexity and other characteristics, important among which is the characteristic that in the voluntary action the act is foreseen, the idea precedes its execution, while in the involuntary mode of action the act, though perhaps foreseen as a result of re- membered experience, takes place not in obedience to this foresight, but “we know what we are going to do only after we have done it.” From this it follows that no act can be voluntary the first time it is performed. ‘Until we have done it at least once, we can have no idea of what sort of a thing it is like, and do not know in what direction to set our will to bring it about.” If one attempts to move his ear, the great difficulty is to know what sort of an effort to make, and what is lacking is the remembrance of the feeling of a moving ear. This is the mental material out of which the motion is generated, and the way to proceed is to move the ear passively until we have a tolerably clear idea of the feeling of the ear when it moves, and then attempt to reproduce this feeling. We teach children to write by holding their hands in the proper position, until they know how it feels; and so, in general, unless we have a guide to direct us in the kind of effort we ought to make to secure the desired end, we must more or less trust toa chance success. There is no abstract willing into the void, and without a memory there could be no will. All our most elaborate acts of will depend for their execution on certain physiological co-ordinations, which, in 66 SCIENCE. turn, have been evolved in one way or another from the instinctive expressions of our automatic life. This idea of the intended action is not only necessary for the will: it is a sufficient incentive to it. The class of action to which Carpenter gave the name ‘ideo-motor’ is really the type of action. To this class belong such movements as those concerned in picking a pin from the floor while talking, or in scribbling with a pencil, or absent-mindedly taking nuts and raisins from the dish during an after-dinner chat. The deliberate eating is over, but the idea of eating as excited by the sight of the dish, “not meeting with any express contradiction, fatally passes over into action.” It needs for this no separate faz of the will: it is enough that no pos- itively hindering idea should be there. The familiar dialogue of ideas that takes place when we have the ordeal of rising on a cold morning before us, illustrates the mental process admirably. We think how late it is getting, how much we have to do, how shameful itis to waste time in this fashion, and yet we remain passive and comfortable, allowing the resolution to fade away every time it seems about to pass into effect. How do we ever get up in such a case? ‘We suddenly find that we have got up. A fortunate lapse of consciousness occurs : we forget both the warmth and the cold ; we fall into some revery connected with the day’s life, in the course of which the idea flashes across us, ‘ Halloo! I must lie here no longer,’ — an idea which at that lucky instant awakens no contra- dictory or paralyzing suggestions, and consequently produces im- mediately its appropriate motor effects.” In general, ‘the sole known cause for the execution of a movement is the bare idea of the movement’s execution, and, if the idea occurs to a mind empty of other ideas, the movement will fatally and infallibly take place.” The hyp- notic subject well illustrates this principle, for it is just because his mind is empty of other ideas that he acts out so promptly and auto- matically any and every suggestion of the hypnotizer. Normally the mind is full of a host of ideas, and, if they harmonize with the idea that is to lead to action, they will re-enforce and quicken the act: if they conflict with it, they delay it or may prevent its realiza- tion altogether. Had we simply called up the idea, ‘ we have eaten enough,’ this would have been sufficient to check the raising of the hand towards the confectionery on the table. This fact of one brain-process interfering with another, physiology terms ‘ inhibi- tion,’ and sees in it no more (and also no less) a mystery than in the fact of stimulation itself. The reason, then, why, with a con- stant stream of thought passing through one’s mind from morning till night, there are so few that lead to action, is because the vari- ous things thought of at once meet with contradictory thoughts, and do not conspire with the action. ‘They are not consented to. ‘Consent,’ in short, is a word which describes most of our activity far more accurately than ‘ volition’ does.” The volition would quite as often consist in refusing this consent. The lack of power to re- fuse this consent, to call up the contradictory ideas with sufficient vividness, is what characterizes the slave to passion. The drunk- ard finds himself preparing to drink at the sight of every bottle and glass, not because he does not realize the consequences of his act, but because he does not refuse his consent to it. ‘This is why volcanic natures like the Mahomets, the Luthers, and the Bona- partes, are usually fatalists. They find themselves bursting into action with an energy at which they are themselves astonished, as if some god or demon had released a spring.” Having thus considered involuntary actions, and the action fol- lowing upon the volition of consent, there remains the most highly evolved type of actions, such as depend upon the volition of effort. The ‘ new psychology ’ naturally rejects the notion that the will is an outside force exerting its influence upon conduct in a very remote and contra-physical manner, and regards the will as bound down by the conditions of nerve-cell and muscle quite as much as are the simpler acts of a sentient being. The effort does not supplant the ideas: it simply enables us to hold them fast, so that they may be- come vivid enough to make the physical machine obey. When laboring under a passion, the difficulty in acting rationally is not a physical one. It is as easy, physiologically considered, to perform the movements that lead to the fleeing from temptation as those that yield to it. The difficulty is a mental one. It is the difficulty of getting the idea of the rational conduct to stay before the mind at all. The effect of a strong emotional state is to shut out all [Vor 26” ViNo-¥262 ideas that do not harmonize with the satisfaction of the emotion. All others are hushed, and allowed no audience. “The cooling advice which we get from others when the fever-fit is on us is the most jarring and exasperating thing in life.” If the rational ideas can ever get a hearing, the crisis is past; for with the new ideas come new tendencies to action, that lead away from passion, and so avert the evil. The strain of the will consists in the keeping the attention fixed on such ideas as the better conscience knows to be warranted, and in keeping down the conflicting notions. ‘Consent to the idea’s undivided presence, — this is the effort’s sole achieye- ment: its only function is to get this feeling of consent into the mind.” And from this view, it is as good a case of willing if I give my consent to the table’s moving as to the movement of my own legs. In the one case the consent is so connected with a nervous system (which connection itself is liable to disturbance by disease), that the act follows from the consent: in the other no such con- nection exists. In principle the two cases do not differ: the men- tal prerequisite of the willed action is present. The moral effort, then, that we have constantly to perform in life, is the overcoming of the resistance which certain ideas offer to being attended to at all. The resistance may be internal, as the uncongeniality of the task; or external, as conflicting with the mood of the mind at the moment: for example, the thought of to- morrow’s task while enjoying one’s self at an evening’s entertain- ment. We almost involuntarily decide not to think of that, and so frighten the spectre away. But the moral act is the attending to the thought under such circumstances, until it results in action. And the free-will controversy from this point of view resolves itself into the amount of effort that it is possible to put forth in the way of holding an unwelcome idea in the mind. The answer to the question, ‘ What happens when we exert our will?’ is, according to Professor James, that ‘we simply fill our mind with an idea which, but for our effort, would slip away.’ This at once opens up a host of ethical considerations which are treated not in the usual manner of omitting the really difficult points and dwelling upon the easy ones, but by manfully facing the real question. A few citations must suffice to suggest the tone of the view which the article upholds. The first lesson drawn from the psychology of the will is that “the will has as much to do with our beliefs and faiths as with our movements. It is, in fact, only in consequence of a faith that our movements themselves ensue. We think of a movement, and say, ‘ Let it ensue. So far as weare concerned, let it be part of reality.’ This is all that our mind can do: physical nature must do the rest.” This is the method of at- taining a belief: we let our mind fill with it, and drive other thoughts out of the field. Were the problems of life perfectly simple, and the lessons that nature teaches perfectly clear and unambiguous, there would be no great difficulty in selecting a view and adhering to it. ‘But these ostrich-like attitudes are both of them [i.e., that of the dogmatic spiritualist and the dogmatic materialist] getting harder than ever to maintain.” ‘So long as our mind is assailed in two such different ways, it is quite idle to talk of its being pas- sive and will-less until the objective truths shall have written them- selves down. They write down no messages which are both cohe- rent and universal.” Look at the men who at the present day feel life on all its sides, and yet who are incapable of volition in intel- lectual affairs, and imagine that there ought to be some sort of truth with which they can remain in passive equilibrium. Their feelings make them shiver at the materialistic facts, while their loy- alty to science makes them dread to be dupes of their feelings. «But the men of will do not let ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ in any such sorry fashion. They choose their attitude, and know that the facing of its difficulties shall remain a permanent portion of their task.” ‘No more in the theoretic than in the practical sphere do we care for, or go for help to, those who have no head for risks, or sense for living on the perilous edge.” A STUDY OF HypNortisM. — In the current number of the /Vor¢h American Review, Dr, Gilles de la Tourrette, a pupil of Charcot, gives an account of the views of the several varieties of hypnotic sleep which the French school have developed. While the article gives nothing that is new, it is a convenient and authoritative ex- position of the work that has occupied so much of the attention of the workers at the ‘ Salpétriére.’ FEBRUARY 10, 1888. | HEALTH MATTERS. THE THERMAL DEATH-POINT OF BACTERIA.— Dr. George M. Sternberg, U.S.A., the well-known bacteriologist, has been for some time experimenting on the thermal death-point of pathogenic micro-organisms. He has published his results in the Ammerzcan Journal of the Medical Sctences. All the tests were made with moist heat, ten minutes being the time of exposure to the given temperature. The absence of growth after eight or ten days is regarded by Dr. Sternberg as evidence that the vitality of the test- organism has been destroyed by the temperature to which it was ex- posed. No attempt has been made to fix the thermal death-point within narrower limits than 2° C., and the lowest temperature is given which has been found, in the experiments made, to destroy all of the organisms in the material subjected to the test. No doubt more ex- tended experiments would result, in some instances, in a reduction of the temperature given as the thermal death-point for a degree or more; but the results as stated are sufficiently accurate for all practical purposes, and permit us to draw some general conclusions : (a) the temperature required to destroy the vitality of pathogenic organisms varies for different organisms; (4) in the absence of spores, the limits of variation are about 10° C. (18° F.); (¢) a tem- perature of 56° C. (132.8° F.) is fatal to the bacillus of anthrax, the bacillus of typhoid-fever, the bacillus of glanders, the spirillum of Asiatic cholera, the erysipelas coccus, to the virus of vaccinia, of rinderpest, of sheep-pox, and probably of several other infec- tious diseases ; (¢@) a temperature of 56° C. (132.8° F.) is fatal to all of the pathogenic and non-pathogenic organisms tested, in_the absence of spores (with the single exception of sarczza lutea, which, in one experiment, grew after exposure to this temperature) ; (e) a temperature of 100° C. (212° F.) maintained for five minutes de- stroys the spores of all pathogenic organisms tested ; (/) it is prob- able that some of the bacilli which are destroyed by a temperature of 60° C. form endogenous spores, which are also destroyed at this temperature. THE HERNDON SCARLET-FEVER EPIDEMIC. — During the past year Dr. Klein of England investigated an epidemic of scarlet-fever the origin of which he believed that he could trace to a herd of cows at Herndon. This investigation of Klein demonstrated that the affected animals were suffering from a disease which was com- municable to healthy ones, and also to man by inoculation. It was considered to be distinct from cow-pox; and the weight of evi- dence seemed to indicate that it was scarlet-fever, and that the milk from animals infected with the disease could communicate it to those who drank it. These conclusions of Klein’s have been pub- lished broadcast throughout the world, and have been generally ac- cepted. Since this report, the agricultural department of the privy council has authorized another expert, Professor Crookshank, to investigate the subject. He has done so, and has made his report. His conclusions differ entirely from those of Klein. He believes that the Herndon disease was not scarlet-fever, but cow-pox ; and of course the epidemic, or rather outbreak, of scarlet-fever near London had no connection whatever with the disease which af- fected the Herndon cows. Which of the two experts is correct, time alone can decide. Dr. Klein is not a novice in investigations of this kind, and is not likely to be led into such a serious error as the report of Crookshank would seem to indicate. Klein saw the affected cows at Herndon ; Crookshank did not, and based his opin- ion solely on the description of the disease as given by Klein and others. The result of the controversy will be watched with interest by the scientific world. CONTAGIOUSNESS OF LEPROSY. — The question of the con- tagiousness of leprosy has again been raised by the action of the board of health of Philadelphia in fining a physician one hundred dollars for not having reported two cases of that disease which were under his care. The editor of the Vew Vork Medical Jour- nal, in commenting on this subject, claims that there is a mass of incontrovertible evidence to be found in medical literature which ought to place its contagiousness beyond question. In the Sand- wich Islands the physicians believe strongly in its communicability, and a number of instances are given which confirm this belief. One of these is that of a Belgian priest who lived in the leper settle- ment for the purpose of nursing and otherwise caring for those who, SCIENCE: 67 having the disease, were here isolated. The result is, that the priest himself is now a victim of the disease. The medical attend- ants of these outcasts will not go near them without having their hands protected by gloves. The editor of the journal quotes the opinions of other writers who agree with him in his views, and re- fers to the report of the English commission appointed by the Royal College of Physicians in 1867, which holds that leprosy is not contagious. He concludes by saying, ‘In the face of all this reliable evidence, a reasonable doubt can scarcely be entertained of the contagiousness of leprosy. In its power of contagion, leprosy may well be, as it often has been, compared to syphilis, and, like that disease, it is frequently contracted through sexual intercourse, and is also just as frequently transmitted to the offspring.” EXPLORATION AND TRAVEL. Stanley’s Expedition. Petermann's Mitteclungen gives a brief review of the events that have taken place in Central Africa since Stanley's departure from the camp at the Yambunga rapids on the Aruvimi. On the 2d of July, Stanley sent news from Mabode, on the Aruvimi, which was brought to Leopoldville by the steamer ‘Stanley.’ Since the be- ginning of July the steamer ‘Stanley’ has made only one trip to the Aruvimi. On the day of her return, Aug. 17, Major Barttelot, who commands the camp at Yambunga, had no news from Stanley. As Tippo-Tip had not sent the promised troops from Stanley Falls, Barttelot was not able to leave his camp and follow Stanley. After a thorough repair of the steamer, the ‘Stanley’ left Leopoldville on Nov. 15 for Bangala. After her return she will convey Captain van der Velde to Stanley Falls, where he will establish a new station near Tippo-Tip’s village. Therefore we may expect to hear of the events on the Upper Kongo towards March. Unfortunately the King of Uganda has again cut off the con- nection between Emin Pacha and Zanzibar, and the reason for his hostility is his fear of Stanley’s expedition. After the latter had left Zanzibar, the British consul-general had sent a letter to King Mwanga in order to inform him of the object of the expedition. This letter, which reached Uganda in June, fell into the hands of the Arabs, who were hostile to the Europeans who tried to suppress the slave-trade. They presented it to King Mwanga, and read it to him to suit their purpose. They said the letter informed the king of Stanley’s intention to attack the kingdom with an army of two thousand men in order to revenge Bishop Hannington’s death. The well-known missionary, Rev. Mr. Mackay, tried to disperse the king’s suspicion by informing him of the real contents of the letter ; but, as he was accused of being himself an ally of Stanley’s, he had to leave the country in which he had lived fornineyears. On Aug. 2 he arrived at Msalala, on the south shore of the Victoria Nyanza, where the missionary Gordon had a station. The latter, who was agreeable to King Mwanga on account of his relationship to Gen- eral Gordon, went to Uganda. The king, however, still suspecting Stanley’s intentions, made war upon Kabrega, king of Unyoro, who, he feared, would join Stanley in order to gain his independence. The result of this war is not yet known. But in consequence of this war the messengers who were sent to Casati with letters of credit were prevented from reaching him. It will be remembered that two of Tippo-Tip’s men were sent in February of last year on this errand. They went from Zanzibar to Tabora, crossed Karag- we, and reached Kasinga, near the Muta Nsige, in the middle of May. They were, however, unable to enter Unyoro, as it was said that Mwanga had attacked the latter with an army of two hundred thousand men. Having staid two months in Kasinga, they re- turned to Zanzibar, their means having become exhausted. In December the news was received in Zanzibar that Stanley had reached Wadelai early in September, and that the passage from Mabode to the Nile was extremely difficult. The messenger who carried the report to Zanzibar was not despatched by Stanley, but learned the news from Arabian traders: therefore it is doubt- ful whether the report is true. The telegraph said some days ago that news had been received by Dr. Schweinfurth in Cairo, but this highly improbable report has been since denied by Schweinfurth himself. 68 ANTARCTIC REGIONS. — The British Government has refused the request of the Australian colonies to grant a subsidy to the proposed Antarctic expedition which was to be organized by a joint effort of the Australian colonies in case the British Government should support the undertaking. This decision will probably post- pone the resuming of Antarctic exploration for an indefinite time. Although it is not probable that results of great commercial value will be obtained by an expedition of this kind, the scientific objects are so great that this new delay must be greatly regretted. ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. Electricity directly from Heat. ATTEMPTS to generate electric currents, by utilizing the fact that - magnetic metals lose their magnetic properties when sufficiently heated, have been made for some years. It is only recently, how- ever, that such experiments have been made on a practical scale, and with any promise of ultimate success. When we consider that in the most economical source of electricity, the dynamo-electric machine, we transform the energy of our fuel to the energy of steam under pressure. then through the steam-engine to mechan- ical work, and finally by the dynamo to the energy of electrical cur- rents, losing energy in each transformation, our ultimate return be- ing perhaps ten per cent of the energy expended; when we add to SCIENCE. [Vox. XI. No. 262 In his paper, Mr. Edison gave no data as to the performance of the machine, except the statement that a generator to feed thirty incandescent lamps would weigh two or three tons. Nothing has been heard lately of this generator : it will naturally take time to perfect it and make it practical. Within the last month, however, attention has been called to a machine using the same general principle as that of Mr. Edison, but differing greatly in detail, —an invention of M. Menges of the Hague. One form consists of a Gramme ring within which is a stationary electro-magnet. The two are horizontal, and are separated by a considerable air space: this space is filled by a zigzag ribbon of iron extending around the inner circumference of the ring, with which it revolves. Now, if this ribbon of iron be cold, most of the lines of force will pass through it from one pole to the other of the magnet : few will go through the armature. If, however, the rib- bon be heated at points at right angles to the poles, the magnetic resistance will be increased, and most of the lines of force will pass through the armature: there will be no motion, since every thing is perfectly symmetrical. If, now, the heat be applied to the ends of the same diameter at points forty-five degrees from the pole, the symmetry disappears, and there will be a rotation. Now, the Gramme ring rotating in a field of force will generate currents as in an ordinary dynamo-electric machine. In reality, then, we have a motor-dynamo arrangement, the former transforming the energy of THE SPRAGUE STREET-CAR ELECTRIC MOTOR. this the complication and expense of a steam-plant, — it would seem that, even if our means of direct conversion is not so eco- nomical as the dynamo, yet if it have any reasonable efficiency, and is simple of construction, it would supplant the older method. In August of 1887 Mr. Edison read before the American Associ- ation for the Advancement of Science a paper on pyromagnetic gen- erators. Briefly the principle on which his machine was built is this. Ifa piece of iron wrapped with wire be put between the poles of a magnet, a number of lines of force will pass through it, and therefore through the coils of the wire, depending directly on the strength of the magnet and on the magnetic permeability of the iron. Now, it is well known that the permeability of iron becomes very nearly zero when it is raised to a bright red heat: so, if we heat the iron, the lines of force through it will decrease, and this decrease will cause an electro-motive force in the coil of wire. When the iron cools, there will be an increase of lines of force, causing an electro-motive force in the opposite direction. Mr. Edison’s machine, built on this principle, consists of eight horse- shoe magnets arranged in a circle, the poles facing inward ; and between the poles of each is a roll of thin laminated iron covered with asbestos and wrapped with wire: we will call these the arma- tures. This is placed over a furnace, and beneath it revolves a half-circle of fire-clay, which shields half of the armatures from the heat. If this shield be turned continuously, half of the armatures are being heated while the other half are being cooled; and the electro-motive forces in the two halves, which would be in opposite directions, are added by a commutating arrangement on the shaft of the shield. A blast of cold air assists the cooling of the arma- tures. heat into motion, the latter transforming the energy of motion into electrical energy. Both the ‘pyromagnetic generators’ of Mr. Edison and M. Menges are an advance on previous machines of this type. It is difficult to see, however, how, in their present form, either can pro- duce any very considerable quantity of electrical energy, with any reasonable size of apparatus. The publication of reliable figures on the performance of these machines would be of great interest. SPRAGUE ELECTRIC RAILWAY IN RICHMOND. — There was opened for traffic on Feb. 2 an electric street-railroad that from the extent of the plant, the difficulties overcome, and the perfection of equipment, marks a decided advance in electric traction. The Union Passenger Railway system in Richmond extends from the eastern to the western part of the town, having a total length of track of eleven miles. The road has many curves of short radius. There are grades that reach ten per cent, while there are combina- tions of curves and grades even more difficult than the steepest of the grades. In one case there is a thirty-foot curve on an ascent of seven percent. In addition to this, but a small part of the length is through paved streets, and in wet weather the mud is so bad that in some places it completely covers the rails. The road is equipped with forty large sixteen-foot cars. Beneath each car are two 74-horse power motors, one geared to each pair of wheels. The current is taken from an overhead wire by a wheel or trolley of sheet brass fixed on the end of a rod which holds it up under- neath of and in contact with the wire. This rod is fixed on trunn- ions, and is fitted with springs that give a gentle pressure at the contact. The motors, nominally 74-horse power each, are capa- ble of developing over ten-horse power when necessary. They Fepruary 10, 1888. | are beneath the car, out of sight, and are geared by a system of spur-gears to the axle of the car-wheels. Each motor is swung in a cradle one end of which pivots on the car-axle, — the axle pass- ing through bearings in the cradle, —while the other end is fas- tened to the car-frames by heavy spiral springs above and below. These springs are for the purpose of avoiding any sudden strains. Between the gear on the motor shaft and that on the car-axle is an intermediate gearing which is fitted on its axle with rubber cush- ions to give additional relief from shocks. The whole gear system ~ works easily, and makes very little noise. The switches for con- trolling the current are on both platforms, the car running in either direction. The coils of the field-magnets of the motors are di- vided into a number of sections, and the switch makes different arrangements of these coils, putting them all in series (when the current is least) or in parallel (when the current is greatest), or using different combinations for intermediate powers. The cars are under perfect control: they start easily, and can be backed in- stantly in case of emergency. Brakes are used both for the wheels and on the track, the ordinary wheel-brake not being sufficient for some of the steep grades that occur. Power is supplied from a central station in about the middle of the line. There are six dyna- mos, giving 500 volts and 80 ampéres each. The line was opened for traffic with ten cars running. They were crowded with pas- sengers during the day; and the heavy travel, together with the inexperience of the drivers, was a severe test for the system. There were a few small troubles, but these were soon rectified ; and, on the whole, the day’s work seemed to prove the system a success. BOOK- REVIEWS. Polttecal Economy. By FRANCIS A. WALKER. 2d ed. New York, Holt. 8°. IT would be superfluous to commend to American readers any economic writing by President Walker. His clear style, vigorous thought, and terse expression have long since placed him in the front rank of economic thinkers, whether American or European. His wide experience and his philosophic insight raise him far above those scribblers of ephemeral pamphlets who are crying now for socialism, now for co-operation, now for /azssez fazre, and all under the name of ‘political economy.’ President Walker sees very clearly that economics, if it is a science at all, is only to be studied in the ever-varying phenomena of human nature, and he would be the last to attempt to regulate or produce either charac- ter or productivity by statute. The present volume is the best adapted to the present needs of students in the United States, of any that have come from the press. Not only are the general topics of political economy treated fully and with ample illustration, but a concluding part (and a generous one) is given to the discussion of present problems under the head of ‘Some Applications of Economic Principles.’ We do not follow President Walker in his virtual indorsement of the Ricardian theory of rent, or of Malthusianism ; for, despite what he says, both doctrines appear to us to be mere approximations, and not certain- ties. It is the assumption of their certainty, and the basing of elaborate deductions upon them, which have made so many of the theoretical conclusions of political economy so absurdly at variance with facts. On the wages question President Walker is particular- ly strong and clear, and his conclusions incontestable. It is inter- esting to see a professed economist write of the system of protec- tion as the author does. His fellow-economists are given to abuse and the hurling of epithets as soon as the subject is mentioned ; but President Walker, in a fairer spirit, writes, “If the protection- ist can show that restraints imposed by law upon the industrial action of his countrymen, or the men of any country he chooses to take for the purposes of the debate, have the effect not, indeed, to generate productive force, but to direct the productive force gener- ated by human wants, setting in motion labor with a better actual result than under the rule of freedom, he will make his case. But this is to be proved, not taken for granted; and it is only to be proved by sound and serious argument, not by strenuous exertion and senseless clamor” (pp. 508, 509). This is a position which all rational men can accept ; and it is infinitely removed from the line of argument, or rather of invective, pursued by Professors Sumner and SCIENCE: 69 Perry. President Walker's argument in Paragraph 615, we do not, however, quite understand ; for it seems to imply that the advocates of protection insist on that as a universal fiscal policy with a view to making industrial entities correspond to political ones. As we read their arguments, on the other hand,no such claim is made. It is only asserted that protection is best for the United States at this time. At all events, a free-trade argument on the basis indi- cated by the writer would be both valuable and interesting. We cannot refrain from expressing the wish that this book may find its way into more of our colleges, for it is worthy of them. Nuttall’s Standard Dictionary of the English Language. New edition, revised by Rev. James Wood. New York, Warne & C@, 8° breGO, GREAT improvements have been made of late years in concise and handy dictionaries. Those formerly in use contained but a small proportion of the words in the language, and many of the definitions were nothing but synonymous terms; so that, for every purpose of real scholarship, reference had to be made to a large dictionary. But now we have’ several dictionaries of convenient size and low price, which really serve their intended purpose, and one of the best of these is that now before us. We have not examined the work in detail ; but such examination as we have been able to give it shows it to be worthy of the popularity it has already at- tained. The definitions — always the main point in a dictionary — are up to the level of those in other English dictionaries, and the various meanings of the same word are distinguished with much fulness and accuracy. Illustrative examples from authors are not given, as the smallness of the book forbids it; but there are some pictorial illustrations, though not so-many as in some other dictiona- ries of a similar character. The orthography is that usually em- ployed in England, including the z in such words as ‘honour.’ The pronunciation is indicated by respelling, with only a slight use of diacritical marks, —a method which, for young people and for many older ones, has certain advantages. The present revised edi- tion contains many new words of science and literature, and indi- cates in a brief way the derivation of the more important words when this is not obvious. At the end of the volume are the usual vocabularies of proper names, and a brief list of proverbs and quo- tations from foreign languages, with their meaning in English. The type employed in the book is necessarily small, though not so small as in some other concise dictionaries, and it is new and clear. The book is a medium octavo of eight hundred pages, and will be useful to all who wish for a dictionary of this character. Hand-Book of Volapuk. By CHARLES E. SPRAGUE. New York, The Office Co. 12°. $2. Volapik. By KLas AUGUST LINDERFELT. per. 16°. *50 cents. THE bibliography of Volapiik now comprises about a hundred books, but, probably for reasons well presented by Professor Bell in Sczence of Jan. 27, very few of these works are in English. The above are two out of the first half-dozen books on the subject in the English language, though many periodicals in this country have given considerable space, especially during the past few months, to Volapiikian literature. Mr. Sprague, who appears to be at the head of the movement in this country, gives, in the introduction to his hand-book, a brief history of the new language and of its rapid progress in Europe. He states that it was invented and first pub- lished in 1879 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a German priest, whose object was, “first, to producej'a language capable of expressing thought with the greatest clearness and accuracy ; second, to make . its acquisition as easy as possible to the greatest number.” He sought to accomplish these ends “by observing the processes of the many languages with which he was acquainted; following them as models wherever they were clear, accurate, and simple, but avoiding their faults, obscurities, and difficulties.” The result of his labors is a language whose “rules have the advantage of being absolute, and unburdened with exceptions,” as Professor Bell puts it. A clear and attractive exposition of the new language, in small compass, is given by Mr. Sprague, who modestly claims that the most obvious application of it, in the immediate future at least, is for international correspondence, especially commercial correspond- Milwaukee, Cas- “6 : SCIENCE. ence, which is numerically most important. Mr. Linderfelt’s little volume presents the subject in an equally attractive though some- what different manner, being based upon a German work by Pro- fessor Kirchhoff of the University of Halle. Each book contains a copious vocabulary, besides exercises in reading and translation. Management of Accumulators. By Sir DAVID SALOMONS. 3d ed. New York, Van Nostrand. 16°. 7 IN the last few years it has been recognized that the treatment of secondary batteries has as much to do with their life and econ- omy as the method of manufacture, especially in the ‘grid’ type of cell now generally used. No one has had more experience in the use of storage cells than Sir D. Salomons, and what he tells us is of great value to those who work with them. The present edition of the ‘Management of Accumulators’ is much larger than the two previous editions, the principal increase being in the chapters on installation. The book is in no sense a treatise on accumulators: it gives but a bare and incomplete de- scription of the chemical actions that take place, and does not at- tempt to describe any form of battery other than the grid type of the E. R. S. Company’s pattern. Instead of this, it gives explicit directions for the care of batteries and the installation of an isolated lighting plant, and it gives estimates of the cost of installation un- der various conditions. The least satisfactory chapter — that on engines, dynamos, and electric motors — fortunately is the easiest dispensed with. This book will be valuable to all those who have to do with storage batteries: it will possibly be out of date in a couple of years. The storage battery is being constantly changed and de- veloped, but in the mean time it will have done a good work, and it is to be hoped, that, when the practice changes, Sir David will write a new book. NOTES AND NEWS. THE annual winter meeting of the Department of Superintend- ence of the National Educational Association was held in the hall of the Franklin School, Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week. An excellent programme had been prepared by President Dougherty, and the number of dis- tinguished educators who delivered addresses was unusually large. The most important topics treated were, ‘How and to What Extent can Manual Training be ingrafted on our System of Public Schools?’ by Charles H. Ham of Chicago, Superintendent Mac Alis- ter of Philadelphia, Superintendent Marble of Worcester, President Nicholas Murray Butler of New York, Superintendent Powell of Washington, and Dr. Belfield of Chicago ; ‘ How can the Qualifica- tions of Teachers be determined ?’ by State Superintendents Draper of New York, Higbee of Pennsylvania, Finger of North Carolina, Kiehle of Minnesota, Easton of Louisiana. President Eliot of Harvard read a paper on the second day of the meeting. —The October number of the Alonthly Weather Review con- tains an interesting discussion by E. B. Garriott on the movements of high-barometer areas over the North Atlantic Ocean, founded on the daily weather-charts for 1885. In the Weather Review for July, 1887, it was shown that a cyclone’s movement depends upon its position with reference to anticyclonic areas, and that during periods of high barometric pressure over mid-ocean north of the 4oth parallel, storm areas do not follow the usual east-north-east course to European waters, but pursue a more northerly track, or - disperse. In order to study the course of cyclones more closely than has been done heretofore, this investigation was carried on, and resulted in the discovery of the following facts. There exists al- most continually an area of high barometric pressure south of the 4oth parallel, and one of low barometric pressure farther north. Upon advancing from the American coast, areas of low barometer appear to move towards the region of low barometer, and areas of high pressure are apparently attracted to the region of maxima. The latter show a far greater degree of uniformity of movement than the cyclonic areas, their course and velocity being seldom in- fluenced by the cyclonic areas that may precede or follow them. About ninety per cent of these anticyclones pursue a south-of-east [Vor. XI. No. 262 course from the American coast, and, upon advancing to the vicin- ity of the 60th meridian, lose their individuality and become a part of the great anticyclonic system of that region. The average time occupied by the anticyclones of 1885 in advancing from the goth meridian to the coast was about one and one-half days, this rate of progression being considerably greater than the average velocity of cyclonic areas over that region. As soon as an anticyclone is absorbed by the great anticyclonic system, the latter extends considerably westward, and therefore a cyclone closely following the passage of a high-barometer area takes an abnormal northerly course; and, on the other hand, the greater the period which exists between the advance of the areas from the coast-line, the greater will be the likelihood of the low-pressure area pursuing a normal path over the ocean. As in the normal movement of cyclonic and anticyclonic areas the latter more frequently closely follow and ac- celerate the forward motion of the former upon passing from the coast, they materially contribute to the greater rapidity of their ad- vance over theocean. The thorough study of the normal movements of anticyclonic areas over the continent and the western portion of the ocean, and of the relations which exist between high and low barometer areas attending their passage from the coast, will proba- bly enable us to determine with a considerable degree of accuracy the course of cyclones across the Atlantic Ocean. —It has been generally accepted that the translation of the name of ‘Kongo’ is ‘the country of leopards,’ the root #0 meaning ‘the country,’ and zgo ‘leopard.’ J. Janko, in the January number of Petermann's Mitlezlungen, shows that this translation is not satisfactory, as, according to the rules of the Bantu language, these two words cannot be combined into the word ‘ Kongo.’ He discusses the various forms of this word as found among the tribes of the Lower Kongo, —the Bakongo, who live on the river from its mouth to Stanley Pool; the Bateke, who occupy the regions be- tween the Kuango and Kongo, and the Kongo and Alima; the Babuma, north-west of the last tribe; and the Bayanzi, between Leopold Lake and the Kongo. The Bakongo name of the river is ‘Kongo, that used by the Bateke is ‘Songo,’ and the Bayanzi say “Rongo.’ All these names are dialectic variations of the same word, the & of one dialect becoming 7 and s in the others. The meaning of the word in the Bayanzi dialect is ‘ spear,’ and accordingly Janko explains the name of Bakongo as ‘the man with the spear ;’ the name of the river, as ‘fast as a spear.’ If this translation should be correct, it seems more probable that the name of the river was derived from that of the tribe. Janko remarks incidentally that the root #z infers a motion, and that it is contained in the names of numerous rivers, such as Kuilu, Kunene, Kuango, Kuanza, which therefore must not be spelled Kwilu, Kwango, etc. It seems prob- able that the same root may be contained in the word ‘ Kongo,’ and that the meaning ‘ spear,’ which is, according to Janko, confined to the Bayanzi, is also derived from this root. —In controlling the movements of domestic animals by the voice, besides words of ordinary import, man uses a variety of peculiar terms, calls, and inarticulate sounds, —not to include whistling, — which vary in different localities. In driving yoked cattle and harnessed horses, teamsters cry ‘get up,” ‘click click’ (tongue against teeth), ‘gee,’ ‘haw,’ ‘whoa,’ ‘whoosh,’ ‘back,’ etc., in English-speaking countries; ‘arre,’ ‘arri,’ ‘jiih,’ ‘ gio,’ etc., in European countries. In the United States ‘gee’ directs the animals away from the driver, hence to the right; but in England the same term has the opposite effect, because the driver walks on the right-hand side of his team. In Virginia, mule-drivers gee the animals with the cry ‘hep-yee-ee-a.. In Norfolk, England, ‘whoosh-wo;’ in France, ‘hue’ and ‘huhaut;’ in Germany, ‘hott’ and ‘hotte;’ in some parts of Russia ‘haita,’— serve the same purpose. To direct animals to the left, another series of terms is used. In calling cattle in the field, the following cries are used in the localities given: ‘boss, boss,’ ‘sake, sake’ (Connecti- cut); ‘coo, coo’ (Virginia); ‘sook, sook,’ also ‘sookey’ (Mary- land); ‘sookow’ (Alabama); ‘tlon, tloh’ (Russia); and for calling horses, ‘kope, kope,’ (Maryland and Alabama); for calling sheep, ‘konanny’ (Maryland); for calling hogs, ‘chee-oo-00’ (Virginia). Mr. H. Carrington Bolton‘is desirous of collecting words and ex- pressions (oaths excepted) used in addressing domesticated ani- FEBRUARY 10, 1888. | mals in all parts of the United States and in foreign lands. In particular he seeks information as to (1) the terms used to start, hasten, haw, gee, back, and stop horses, oxen, camels, and other animals in harness ; (2) terms used for calling in the field cattle, horses, mules, asses, camels, sheep, goats, swine, poultry, and other animals; (3) exclamations used in driving from the person domes- tic animals; (4) any expressions and inarticulate sounds used in addressing domestic animals for any purpose whatever (dogs and - cats). References to information in works of travel and general literature will be very welcome. Persons willing to collect and for- ward the above-mentioned data will confer great obligations on Mr. ‘Bolton. He is already indebted to many correspondents for kind replies to his appeal for the ‘Counting-out Rhymes of Children,’ the results of which have been published in a volume with that title (London, Elliot Stock). To indicate the value of vowels in English, please use the vowels-signs of Webster’s Unabridged, and in cases of difficulty spell phonetically. All correspondence will be gratefully received, and materials used will be credited to the con- tributors. Address Mr. H. Carrington Bolton, University Club, New York City. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *.” Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer’s name is iz all cases required as proof of good faith. Twenty copies of the number containing his communication will be furnished Sree to any correspondent on request. The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. Weather-Predictions. Mr. CLAYTON’S letter on weather-predictions, in the last Sczence, furnishes a very interesting comparison. I find in the Bulletin of the New England Meteorological Society for October, 1887, Mr. Clayton’s interpretation and verification by his own rules of the government predictions. These are made generally for the whole of New England, but it is to be presumed that he has made a fair estimate so as to give a comparison with his own predictions for south-east New England. He gives the Signal Service 58 per cent, and himself 85 per cent. It now appears (see Sczence, Jan. 27) that precisely the same predictions, stripped of all ambiguity and narrowed down to a definite locality (Boston), give, by an applica- tion of the same rules, 96 and 80 per cent respectively. This strik- ing difference of 43 per cent, in the application of the same rules of verification, shows the absolute need of a fair comparison in weather- predictions, and that, too, between similar things. x. The Snow-Snake and its Name. AS my notes on the snow-snake were written partly to elicit in- formation, and partly to point out an anachronism, I am glad_ to receive so early areply. I objected, by implication, to the use of misleading terms for what is probably an old game. I am also aware that a Southern Iroquois nation, for over one hundred and seventy years past resident in New York, now has the snow-snake and a name for it; but I did not and do not think the Southern winters appropriate for the game. The description to which I re- ferred was in every way erroneous, and yet was made to have an historic air, But I wished also to learn the extent to which the game was played, North and South, East and West, and it is pleasant to be assured that it “was a favorite out-door sport of the Carolinian and Virginian tribes of Iroquois.” I would esteem it a personal favor if Mr. Hewitt will kindly furnish quotations descrip- tive of its early use south of the James River. They will be prized by me and others, having escaped our attention. A more important question is raised by Mr. Hewitt. My or- thography of the word £a-wher-tah needs no correction, as spelling and pronunciation were given me by living Onondagas, not taken from lifeless books. But the point, rather incorrectly stated by Mr. Hewitt, is worthy of attention. It is not the case, as he says, that the letter 7 “does not occur in the speech of the Onondagas of the present time,” but it certainly has become obscure and rare. In all our early records the letter is frequent : Zeisberger employed it SORE INGi= 7? largely in his Onondaga dictionary; in Schoolcraft’s vocabulary I think it is found only in the numerals; among the present Onon- dagas it occurs but sparingly in proper names and other words. Some time ago my Onondaga friend, Sa-go-na-qua-der, sent me a version of the Lord’s Prayer in that language. He was not sure of his spelling, and wished me to revise it with him when next at his. house. The letter in question frequently occurred, but the sound was obscure. I went over the version with him syllable by syllable, to get the exact sound, and retained the letter four times as clearly enunciated. It is probable that some Onondagas have given up the letter altogether, while others retain it, and this would account for varia- tions in orthography. My work for many years has been mainly on the early history and customs of the Onondagas, and notes on their language have been but incidental. I am now offered assist- ance by them in this, and, if I can carry out a contemplated pl an will pay especial attention to the question brought up by Mr. Hewitt. Until I have more original data, it would be out of place, for me to do more than justify my present use. The point is de- batable, in a sense, but will require some critical research if we are to know the exact extent which the change has reached. W. M. BEAUCHAMP. Baldwinsville, N. Y., Jan. 30. The Occipito-Temporal Region in the Crania of Carnivora. IN the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences for 1886, p. 36, I briefly described, under the name of the post-tympanic bone, an ossicle which lies over the squamosal and opisthotic bones. in Ursus. 1 have since examined Amphzcyon, Dznzctzs, and Archelurus. 1 find that the inferior surfaces of the conjoined bones above named exhibit appearances which resemble those seen in Ursus, and make it probable that a post-tympanic bone of larger size than the ursine ossicle was present in these genera. Apart from the bone itself, it is noteworthy that the details in the struc- ture and proportions of the squamosal and opisthotic, as they unite to form the post-tympanic process, afford characters by which these genera can be identified. I have also found that the species of extant Fe/¢d@ can also be separated by characters of the tympanic bone, especially by the shape of the tympanic ring, ie., the part of the tympanic bone in advance of the septum. HARRISON ALLEN. Philadelphia, Feb. 7. Monocular versus Binocular Vision. THERE is an interesting phenomenon which is new to the writer, and which very beautifully illustrates the prevalence of monocular over binocular localization. This explanation which we suggest may or may not be true, but it will certainly lead the way to a bet- ter comprehension of the fact in case it cannot be accepted as we explain it. We mention the phenomenon as much to ascertain whether it can be verified by others as to point the way to its ex- planation. It certainly has an interest in the question regarding the perception of distance and the localization of images in stereo- scopic combination. Take two circles, as in Fig. 1, and combine them by crossing the eyes in the ordinary way. We shall see, as is well known, three circles in the field of view, the central one the combined result of two images, and apparently nearer to us than the other and exterior circles, and nearer also than the sheet of paper upon which they are drawn. It is possible that to some experimenters the central circle does not seem nearer than the other two: to the writer it al- ways does. If we combine them by fixating the eyes beyond the plane on which they are drawn, the central circle will appear larger and farther off than the other two. So much, however, is not new, but it is a necessary preliminary to the singular phenomenon which we have not noticed in any investigation of binocular vision. It is also known that the observer can place a pencil or pin point at the apparent location of the central circle, and it will seem to coincide with it, and there is no hesitation in placing it at a point between. the sheet of paper and the eyes. V2 But now, if we take a fine piece of wire, a knife-blade, a needle, ‘or a sharp pencil-point, such objects being used in order to get double images more easily, and place it a short distance farther off than the apparent position of the central circle while we keep the attention upon some point of the circumference of the circle, at a very short distance beyond the point of fixation the needle or piece of wire will appear double, and represents the ordinary homony- mous images, which are the images localized beyond the horopter. We may increase this distance of the needle from the point of con- vergence, and the distance widens as usual between the images. There is perhaps nothing new in this fact. But if we keep the con- vergence of the eyes perfectly fixed for the combination of the two circles to form the central one, and turn the attention to the two homonymous images apparently beyond the point of convergence, and without allowing the convergence to change so as to combine the images of the needle, we shall find, by very close attention, that they will instantaneously spring into the position of heteronymous Fic. 1. images, nearer the eyes than the circle, and without either becom- ing really heteronymous, or in the least approaching each other. Rivalry often takes place between the two positions, so that the images of the needle will alternately seem nearer and farther than the central circle at the point of convergence. A beautiful way of testing the same result is to place the knife- point or needle upon the sheet of paper, and coinciding with any point in the circumference, but always allowing the length of the object to lie in, or parallel to, the vertical meridian. If the atten- tion is fixed strongly upon the knife-blade or needle while conver- gence combines the two circles, the two images of the needle or blade seem to coincide with two of the circles, the central and combined circle, and one of the outer circles. But the central and ‘combined circle seems in the same plane with the sheet of paper -and the other two circles. This may vary, however, with rivalry, as experience will show. But if now we begin to move the object toward the eyes, and therefore toward the point of convergence, without altering the latter, and without changing the attention, the two images of the needle or knife-blade will appear nearer than the ») AN JncoMPaRABLE AuMENT FOR THE paw \ AND PROTECTION OF INFANTS aN ae is) ——_F m= SS ‘Eur ERED ACCORDING TOR OF coNGAEES Ine TILESTON & HOLLINGSWORTH, 64 Federal Street, Boston. Manufacturersof Fine Book Papers for let- ter press and cut printing. 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Preceded!by=.---0--sslee Editha’s Burglar. Evenings, 8:15, Saturday Matinees 2 Ab ISON-SQUARE THEATRE. MR. A. M. PALMER, Sole Manager. Evenings at 8:30. Saturday matinée at 2. THE LONDON COMEDY SUCCESS, HEART OF HEARTS. HEART OF HEARTS. By Henry Arthur Jones, author of ‘* The Silver King,’’ &c ALLACK’S. THIRD WEEK. Under the direction of Mr. HENRY E. ABBEY. Evening, 8:15. Matinée SATURDAY, 2:15. L’ABBE CONSTANTIN. L’ABBE CONSTANTIN. L’ABBE CONSTANTIN. L’ABBE CONSTANTIN. ASINO. Broadway and 39th St Evenings at 8. Matinee Saturday at 2, THE BRIGHTEST, MERRIEST, AND MOST EN- JOYABLE COMIC OPERA EVER PRESENTED, AS PERFORMED NEARLY 700 TIMES. ERM TENTS RECEIVED WITH ROARS OF LAUGHTER. METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE. GRAND OPERA IN GERMAN. See Daily Papers for Programme. Box office daily from 9 A.M. till 5 P.M. CADEMY OF MUSIC. Gilmore & Tompkins, Proprietors and Managers. Monday, January oth. MrAoZ UilesMG GRAND PANTOMIME, Evenings at 8. Matinee Wednesday and Saturday at 2. ALY’S THEATRE, Broadway and 30th St. Under the management of Mr. AUGUSTIN DALY. Orchestra, $1.50. Dress Circle, $1. Second Balcony, soc. EVERY EVENING at 8:15. MATINEES begin at 2. EVERY NIGHT at 8:15, production of Shakspeare’s comedy in five acts, ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream, by AUGUSTIN DALY. MATINEES WEDNESDAYS and SATURDAYS. IBLO’S. NIBLO’S. Mr. E. G. GILMORE....... Lessee and Manager. Reserved seats, orchestra circle and balcony, soc. FOURTH WEEK. FOURTH WEEK. STUPENDOUS SUCCESS. Messrs. Henry Pettit and Augustus Harris’s Great English Melodrama. A RUN OF LUCK. A RUN OF LUCK. A RUN OF LUCK. A RUN OF LUCK, MATINEES WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY. Admission, 25c. Children, roc. Continuous BUNNELL’S | 728-32 Broadway. | OLD Sacred Hairy Family LONDON Dog Circus Wonders. |! Entertainment. MUSEUM, | The Greatest Show. | Noon till 11 P.M DEN MUSEE. 23d St., between sth and 6th Ave. Open from rt to x1. Sunday, 1 to rr. New Groups, New Paintings. ‘New Attractions. ERDELYI NACZI. and his HUNGARIAN ORCHESTRA. CONCERTS FROM 3tos5 AND 8 torr. Second exhibition of Paintings now open. Admission to all, 50 cents. Children 25 cents. Ajeeb, the Mystifying Chess Automaton. NEW MAGAZINE—THE SWISS Devoted to spreading a love of CROSS = natureamong the peopie. Edited by HARLAN H. BALLARD, President of the Agassiz Asso- ciation, and succeeding St, Nichols as the official maga- zine of that body. $1.50 a year. Sample copy 10cents, or2> cents for trial subscription for 3 months. N. D.C. HODGES, PUBLISHER, Mention this magazine 47 Lafayette Place, New York. eOCIENCE iS) c , LEN CENTS. Vor. XI. No. 263. NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 17, 1888. @5\6O PER Wess. RCs Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Olass Mail-Matter. Editorial ¢ Bs 6 B { Lectures on Bacteria 4 , n 2 5 84 : 3 dS | The newly elected President of Princeton. . Catalogue of the Pedagogical Library, Philadelphia . 9 84 Science in Elementary Schools . ‘ aes | Natural Resources of the United States 0 : 0 84 ; | The Improvement of Harbor Entrances | Notes and News : a : : 5) Bs GVA A 716 | Exploration and Travel. _ Letters to the Editor. Notes on the Geography of Labrador : : : 7i | The Scientific Swindler Again : W. LeConte Stevens 85 Physiological and Pathological Reversion | Psychics, or the ‘ New Psychology ’ : Elliott Coues 86 LT. Wesley Mills 79 The Expansion of Pine Wood through Absorption of Water Book-Reviews. E. S. Goff 86 Animal Magnetism : 5 0 2 : 82 | Queries and Answers ¢ : ‘ 5 0 86 The Scrence Company, Publishers, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. London agent: G. E. Stechert, 26 King William St., Strand. Py ISON, B MAN &.CO,, , PUBLISHERS O HOOL BOOKS, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO, hee. call attention to their list of SCHOOL and COLLEGE TEXT-BOOKS as representative of the best works of their class. Correspondence relative to the introduction or exchange of text-books cordially invited. GRAY’S BOTANICAL SERIES. By Pror. ASA GRAY, of Harvard University, provides the best and most complete equipment for all classes, or for special study. GRAY’S How Plants Behave . : é 0 ‘ . $0 54 COULTER’S Manual of Botany of the Rocky Mountains $1 62 GRAY’S How Plants Grow. . 6 . . : 80 | GRAY & COULTER’S Text-book of Western Botany 2 16 GRAY’S Lessons in Botany, Revised . . . 94 | GRAY’S NEW BOTANICAL TEXT-BOOK (4 Vots.) GRAY'’S Field, Forest and Garden Botany I 44 Vol. I., New Structural Botany . p 2 00 CRE Ssochoolland)Hicld: Book of Botany mee Vol. II., Goodale’s New Physiological Botany . A 2 00 GRAY’S Manual of Botany : I 62 i j e Vols. III. and IV. (in preparation) GRAY’S Lessons and Manual, 1 vol. 2 16 GRAY’S Structural and Systematic Botany 2 oo | MICROSCOPES. GRAY’S Synoptical Flora of North America (Gamopetals GRAY’S Botanist’s Microscope, 2 lenses . 2 00 ous Dicotyledon’s, complete), 1 vol., new . ; 4 5 00 | GRAY’S Botanist’s Microscope, 3 lenses . 2 50 At the prices named above books will be sent for examination or introduction. Send for descriptive pamphlet containing PORTRAIT and BIOGRAPAICAL SKETCH of Dr. Gray. IVISON, BLAKEMAN & CO., Publishers, 149 Wabash Avenue, Chicago. 753-755 Broadway, New York. SCIENCE, [VoL XI. ¥UST PUBLISHED : The Geological Evidences of Evolution. A POPULAR EXPOSITION OF FACTS BEARING UPON THE DARWINIAN THEORY. By Prof. Angelo Heilprin, Curator-in-Charge of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. 12mo, cloth, fully illustrated. Price, $1.00. THE SAME AUTHOR: CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE TERTIARY GEOL- OGY AND PALEONTOLOGY OF THE UNITED STATES. 4to, cloth, 100 pages, with colored map. Price, $4.00. The above work, of which less than 50 copies now remain, presents for the first time a succinct statement of the Tertiary Geology of each of the several States of the Atlantic and Gulf borders in which the formation has been recognized, in addition toa general systematic review and analysis of the formation taken as a whole. Town Geology: The Lesson of the Phila- delphia Rocks. STUDIES OF NATURE ALONG THE HIGHWAYS AND AMONG THE BYWAYS OF A METRO- POLITAN TOWN. 8vo, cloth, with illustrations of the fossils of the marls, sketches of scenery, dia- cians: and geological maps. Price, $2.00. “* Professor Heilprin adopts that happy style of pre- senting the scientific facts with which he is familiar which Hugh Miller and Huxley and Tyndall, and many others, have done much to associate both with sound and with unsound science.”—Fournal Franklin Institute. ““The present yolume is an admirable exemplification of the true method of geological study. 5 0 Ate work is admirably done, and the studious citizens of the Quaker metropolis owe their best thanks to the young geologist who has performed the task.’’ — Popular Science Monthly. The Geographical and Geological Distri- bution of Animals (International Scientific Series), 1887. 12M0, pp. 435. Price, $2.00. Explorations on the West Coast of Florida and in the Okeechobee Wilderness. (Published by the Wagner Free Institute of Science of Philadelphia), 1887. Royal 8vo., cloth. 23 plates. Price, $2.00. Sent postpaid on receipt of price. Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- delphia. JUST RISAION. The Geological History of Plants. By Sir J. WILtIam Dawson, F.R.S. ternational «cc In- With Illustrations. 12mo, cloth. Price, $1.75. Scientific Series.” ‘The object of this work is to give, in a connected form, a summary of the development of the vegetable kingdom in geological time. To the geologist and botan- ist the subject is one of importance with reference to their special pursuits, and one on which it has not been easy to find any convenient manual of information. It is hoped that its treatmentin the present volume will also be found sufficiently simple and popular to be attractive to the general reader.”’ — From the Preface. D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, I, 3, & 5 Bond St., N. Y. JUS PUIBIENSISUBID. Unfinished Worlds ; A Study in Astronomy by S. H. PARKES, IRONS IDS) 12 Illustrations. Price $1.50. “Tt is seldom one has the privilege of reading a work so full of interest and instruction from beginning to end as the present book. The author is master of his sub- ject.’”’ — Scientific Arena. “'All is well done.’ — Sezence, James Pott & Company, Publishers. f 14 and 16 Astor Place, New York. MPARABLE ‘OR THE GROWTH ROTECTION OF [NFANTS AND CHILDRENS AND A UTRITION KIMBALL’S SATIN STRAIGHT CUT CIGARETTES. People of refined taste who desire exceptionally fine cigar- ettes should use only our STRAIGHT CUT, put 3p { in satin packets and boxes 0 Wee IOs. 20s. ae and 100s. 14 FIRST PRIZE MEDALS. WM. S. KIMBALL & CoO. ic | 3 oh SNS | TATEIT Noyes——= RY s DETECTIVE } MARVELOUS EMORY DISCOVERY. Wholly unlike artificial systems. Any book learned in one reading. Recommended by Mark Twain, RicHarD Proctor, the Scientist; Hon. W. W. Astor; Jupau P. Benya- min; Dr. Minor, &c. Class of 100 Columbia Law stud- ents ; two classes of 200 each at Yale; 400 at University of Penn., Phila., 400 at Wellesley College ; 350 Oberlin College, and three large classes at Chautauqua University, &c. Prospectus rOsT FREE from, PROF. 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Photograph- ic and Photo-Micro- graphic Apparatus and Outfits. Spectacles, Eye Glasses, Opera and Marine Glasses, etc. Illustrated Price List mailed /vee to any ad- : dress. Mention ScrENcE ese in corresponding with us. : “How to Strengthen the Memory.” Rev. E. L. Kelly, of Paterson, N. J., writing of Dr Holbrook’s book, “How to Strengthen the Memory; or, Natural and Scientific Methods of Never Forgetting,”’ says; ‘I haveread this treatise, this gem, and find a mine of wealth hidden in its pages. By it I was enabled last evening to learn the poem ‘Stabat Mater.’ in Latin, It took a little time, but the results were marvelous.”’ Catalogue and prospectus free. Mailed to any address on receipt of $1, by M. L. HOLBROOK CO., 13 Laight St., New York. GUSTAV BP obe CHE Ra 828 Broadway, New York. Importer of Scientific Books and Periodicals. Branches: Leipzig, Hospital Str. 16 ; Lon- don, 26 King William Str.. Strand. ~ V | - S. R. Wincuecyt & Co., 185 Wabash Ave., 0 apu * Chicago, publish the Handbook of Volapik, by Chas. E. Sprague. $1.00, and an 4 bridged Grammar af Volapiik. by Prof. Kerckhoffs, adapted to the use of English-speaking people by Karl Dornbusch. 20 cents. Mailed on receipt of price. (PROF SOR WANTED.— Wanted in the Uni- versity of Toronto for the opening of the University year, 1888-"89 in October, a Professor of Political Science. His special sub-departments would be political economy, comparative politics, history and international law; sal- ary $2,500 perannum. Address Geo. W. Ross, Minister of Education (Ontario), Toronto, Canada. Mann’s Reterence Indexes. References to and transcripts or translations of the lit- erature of ANy SuBJECT furnished by B: PICKMAN MANN, Wasuincton, D. C. Correspondence fee, 50 cents. Explanatory circulars free. oo loge Ole FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1888. FOR MONTHS PAST the attention of university men throughout the country has been centred in the Princeton College Board of Trustees, who were deliberating as to the successor of Dr. M‘Cosh in the presidency of that institution. On Thursday, Feb. 9, the fruit of those deliberations was seen in the unanimous election of Francis L. Patton, D.D., to the vacant post. This choice is on all grounds to be warmly commended. Dr. Patton is still a young man, being but forty-five years of age, and has yet to put forth to their fullest extent his marvellous intellectual powers. We seriously question whether any college has a president of so high an intellectual stamp as Dr. Patton. His theological and philosophical learning is vast in extent, and rich in quality. Both with tongue and pen he is clear and incisive. His critical ability is unrivalled, and in his new posi- tion he will have ample opportunity to show whether or not: he is equally strong in constructive and administrative power. To follow Dr. M‘Cosh is a trying test for any one, but we feel sure that Dr. Patton will confer honor and credit both upon Princeton and upon himself in his administration. That it may be long and prosper- ous, and that Dr. M‘Cosh may long be spared to witness the carry- ing-on of the work that he has so wisely planned, is the hearty wish of every friend of higher education in this country. SCIENCE IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. IN the report of the council of education (England and Wales) for 1887, there are some excellent remarks about elementary science- teaching which are reproduced in a recent number of ature. The judgment is passed that nothing could be more unsatisfactory than the present position of the knowledge and teaching of science in the elementary schools. Notwithstanding all the advantages that have been offered pupil-teachers for the study of science, as a body they appear to be in a most deplorable state in this respect. The inspector who reports on training-colleges finds the ordinary pupil- teacher deficient even in mathematics. It isin doubt whether this deficiency should be ascribed to poor teaching or defective early training. Mr. Fitch, who reports on female training-colleges, finds things no better there. At the admission examination the work in the arithmetic is satisfactory in point of accuracy, but it displays want of method, failure to appreciate the meaning of the question asked, and ignorance of principles. Thus very few of the candi- dates were able to give an intelligent explanation of simple arith- metical processes, such as subtraction or division. With them, as with the male pupil-teachers, book-work and memory are wholly relied on, and little attention is paid to the intelligent application of principles. “ Scarcely three per cent are able to do much more in the teaching of arithmetic than work sums more or less correctly on the blackboard.” With such material to work on, it is not surprising that the re- sults of the work at the colleges are not what they otherwise might be. Those who are below the average at admission rarely succeed very well in the array of subjects to be learned in two years’ train- ing. With regard to the male students, the reports at the close of the first year’s training record that the answering of the questions set on the first book of Euclid was disappointing. The students appear to have learned their propositions by rote, and to have dis- played great want of neatness and accuracy. Though the riders were joined to the propositions on which their solution depended and though all these riders were easy, very few of the papers were satisfactory. This inability to solve the easiest geometrical deduc- tions is commented on again and again, and proves beyond doubt that either the students are negligently taught, or that they commit the book-work to memory without understanding it, and conse- quently are quite incapable of applying their knowledge to solve the simplest riders. In summing up his impressions of the male training-colleges, the inspector gives it as his opinion that the students are over-lectured at some of the colleges, and that the lectures are mechanically re- produced, and transferred as closely as possible to the examination papers. This, of course, is due to the defective early training of the students, and to lectures injudiciously delivered on subjects about which students know absolutely nothing. For instance: one lec- turer delivered a very excellent discourse on the corrupt form of Latin used by the Roman soldiers in Britain, its causes and its ef- fects, to a class of which few, if any, of the members knew any thing whatever of Latin. In the female colleges, even in arithmetic, questions on theory and principles are not well done, long problems are inaccurately done, and, as a whole, it is seen that there is yet much that remains before it can be said that the present system is satisfactory as regards the knowledge given and the methods adopted. There appears to be among the students a very narrow view of their future work, a desire to regard the obtaining of their certificates as the goal and aim of their existence. The views on science, of one of these maidens, are worth recording: “ If I am successful in obtaining my certificate, I intend (D.V.) going infor two sciences. At the same time I pro- pose attending a tonic-sol-fa class to get my advanced certificate. Should the two sciences ‘sound, light, and heat,’ and ‘electricity and magnetism,’ prove a success, I shall probably take up the science of hygiene.” If the training-colleges tend to remove the impression that the technical qualification is the end of the pupil- teacher’s work, if they awaken a spirit of emulation among the students, and enable them to teach more thoroughly and intelli- gently, then they will have fulfilled a large portion of their duties. With such products as are thus indicated, as teachers, it is easy to predict what the schools that are under their care will be like. With masters, the majority of whom know little or nothing of even the elements of science, the pupils cannot be expected to pass well in these subjects. Thus it is seen, in the return of the number of pupils sent up on ‘ specific subjects ’(most of which are scientific), that only 16.51 of those eligible for examination have been so ex- amined, and of these nearly one-half were from the London School Board District. One-half of the passes were in algebra and animal physiology. The inspectors in all parts of the Kingdom agree, that, with the exception of some of the cities and large towns, throughout the elementary schools science is untaught. This we can well imagine, when we have seen that the average teacher is completely ignorant of any of its branches, and it is the average teacher who is sent to the country schools. The explanation of some of the inspectors, that in the country for a great portion of the year the attendance of the children who are fit to be taught these subjects is very irregu- lar, does not meet the question; for, even were the children most regular in their attendance, the subjects could not at present be taught, and, until the average elementary teacher is altered, they will not be taught. The brightest spot of all appears to be Nottingham, and there 2,526 children were examined in specific subjects, of whom four- fifths passed. ‘Mechanics for boys, and domestic economy for girls, are the subjects principally taken by the Nottingham Board Schools, and are taught by a specially qualified science demon- strator and assistant, who visit the various schools in turns, bring- ing the apparatus with them in a specially constructed hand-cart. The lectures given on these occasions are afterwards gone through again by the teachers of the schools, from notes taken at the time. These lectures are simple and interesting, and are given with great 76 care and skill. The results are remarkably good, both as regards the actual knowledge acquired by the scholars, and the stimulus given to the general intelligence. Besides the above-named sub- jects, physiology and algebra are often taken with very good re- sults, and in one school the principles of agriculture are taught with marked success.” Some of the causes of this almost total absence of any scientific teaching in the elementary schools have been pointed out. Where science has been well taught, it has borne good fruit ; and where teachers and managers have set themselves steadfastly to overcome the difficulties in their way, a high and encouraging measure of success has been obtained. Thus we have the remarkable testi- mony of the success of the experiment in Nottingham, and surely there are many other districts in England quite as competent to carry on this work as Nottingham. Why it could not be done in any town in England, it is difficult to see. In many cases where these subjects have been taught, the inspectors have wisely set their faces against them, finding but a wretched smattering among the pupils. Nothing else can be expected in remote rural districts, where the teacher, whose whole time is scarcely sufficient for the few rudimentary subjects, is so ambitious as to attempt to cram some of his pupils with the elementary knowledge of a science of which he is himself confessedly ignorant. But in the towns and cities competent teachers are always to be had. If the board mas- ters do not find themselves fit for the extra labor and extra knowl- edge required, there should be no difficulty in obtaining a special- ist, as has been done at Nottingham. And in no place could the foundations of technical education be more surely laid than among the elder children of elementary schools. In the minutes and in- structions issued to her Majesty’s inspectors, managers are re- quested to aid, in every way they can, the teaching of one or more specific subjects appropriate to the industrial or other needs of the locality, and the rudiments of two higher subjects to supply a foun- dation for future work. With this object, it is suggested that where the teacher is not competent to do so, —and this, according to the reports, is the rule, and not the exception, —a specialist might be employed by a number of schools in a district, whose instruction would be supplemented by that of the ordinary teachers. There is only one instance, that of Nottingham, given in the reports, of such suggestions having been followed. What is said in the report about geography and geography-teach- ing is of special interest. It appears that while there is a great ab- sence of culture and general intelligence upon the part of a consid- erable number of candidates, yet the answers to the geography- papers set for admission to the male training-colleges are more accurate than would be supposed. Here, again, the metropolitan candidates are superior to the pro- vincial candidates, particularly in the map-drawing, though in this particular there has been a falling-away of late. Among the female candidates, the geography was not very satisfactory, exhibiting in- accuracies in map-drawing, indefiniteness in the answers, and gener- ally marks of defective early training. In the examinations for the first year’s certificates the male candidates answered fully and ac- curately; but usually there was a slavish following of the words of the text-books and the lecturers’ notes. At the end of the second year there is the same report, — book-knowledge without intelli- gence, and abundance of information imperfectly digested. With the females the result is the same, — verbatim reproduction of the books or notes they had read; fairly creditable answering; but “the style of the papers reveals the painful poverty of the general reading of the students, and the utter absence of any individuality, or attempt at description in their own words.” In many papers there was a constant iteration of the same words and phrases, sug- gesting that the candidates had learned off by rote the answers to probable questions. Withregard to the elementary schools, all the reports agree in saying that there has been a marked improvement in the teaching of geography. Where it is intelligently taught, it is the favorite subject; but too frequently the children are not well grounded. While all parts of the country report progress in geog- raphy, it is worthy of remark that all the maritime districts surpass the inland schools in the knowledge of the country, its colonies, and its trade. The report believes that this is only natural, and insists that ‘the teacher who would not, in Devonshire, interest a class of SGlIENCE: [VoL. XI. No. 26 boys in the voyages of Drake, or who, in Somerset, would not rivet the attention of his pupils on the victories of Blake, would not be worthy of his post.” Though the teachers may be congratulated, speaking generally, on the progress made in geography, there are many faults to be found. In portions of Wales and of the centre of England, geography is only fairly satisfactory. The pupils are weak in questions of latitude and longitude: they do not learn in- telligently, because most probably they are taught mechanically and unintelligently. It should be within the power of every teacher, by the use of an ordinary globe, to make this portion of the subject in- telligible to any ordinary boy. But few lads could understand a lesson on meridians and parallels, given by a teacher who does not use a globe at all; and yet this is quite common, Hence it is that the map-drawing is very poor, even where there is a good knowl- edge of geographical facts. Many of the inspectors complain of lack of globes, maps, etc.; and, even where there is abundance of general maps, there are no local maps,—a want which is very widely felt. In this respect the Board of Education might take a lesson from the commissioners of national education in Ireland, who have published local maps, and require each pupil in the higher grades to know, in addition to general geography, the map of his neighborhood. THE IMPROVEMENT OF HARBOR ENTRANCES, IN 1743, under the direction of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, a move- ment was started in Philadelphia for the organization of the first scientific society in America; and in a letter from Franklin, under date April 5, 1744, to his friend ‘‘ Hone Cadwallader Colden, Esq.,”” he says, ‘‘ The Society, as far as relates to Philadelphia, is actually formed, and has had several Meetings to mutual Satisfaction ; — as soon as I get home, I shall send you a short Acct. of what has been done and proposed at these meetings.” This society, which for nearly a century and a half has been known as the ‘ American Philosophical Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge,’ has been presided over by the most distin- guished of American scientists and scholars, and an election to its membership has been an honor cherished no less by foreigners than by Americans. The society to-day is venerated for its age, distin- guished for its services in promoting useful knowledge throughout the continent, and claims for its supporters the greatest scientists, the most cultured scholars, and the most prominent of American engineers who have been active in the dissemination of useful knowledge through improved navigation, the creation of canal and railway systems, the telegraph, and the development of the me- chanic arts, by which useful knowledge has become as free to all as the air we breathe. In 1785 John Hyacinth de Magellan of London, recognizing the prominent position of the society, proposed to donate to the society “200 guineas, to be appropriated as a perpetual Fund ; the interest of which to.be annually given, in a medal of gold, as a Premium to the author of the best Discovery, or most useful Improvements re- lating to Navigation or Natural Philosophy.” The conditions under which this premium was to be awarded were drafted by a com- mittee of which Dr. Franklin was a member, and were approved by Magellan himself. These conditions are so exacting that but few discoveries have been considered sufficiently important in them- selves to merit the high honor of the ‘Magellanic Medal,’— an American honor which is esteemed more highly than any to be won by a scientific discoverer in the field of navigation, natural philos- ophy, or astronomy; which latter subject Magellan subsequently included. It has now been many years since any discoverer has received this medal, although applications are continually presented which seek the prize so zealously guarded by the society. Last spring a paper was presented to the society, describing a most important discovery in ocean dynamics, under the title ‘ The Physical Phenomena of Harbor Entrances, their Causes and Reme- dies. — Defects of Present Methods of Improvements.’ This, with other communications, was referred to the consideration of the twelve counsellors and other officers of the society, and on Dec. 16 a favorable report on the discovery was made to the society, and, by a secret ballot of the members, the premium was awarded the same. Upon opening the sealed letter with the same motto as that accompanying the description of the discovery, it was found that FEBRUARY 17, 1888. | ‘the premium had been awarded Lewis M. Haupt, professor of civil ‘engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. This discovery of authorship was a surprise to the society, since it was thought that the author of the paper would have proved to be a member of the ‘Coast and Geodetic Survey, of the Hydrographic Office, or of the River and Harbor Improvement Service, a number of the members of which have given much attention to the laws of ocean dynamics in determining the improvements to be made annually by the gov- ‘ernment to our rivers and harbors. The mere announcement, how- -ever, of Professor Haupt’s name was confirmatory evidence of the wisdom of the society in awarding the medal. Professor Haupt, although an engineer graduate of West Point, has, during the past twenty years of civil professional life as an engineer, won such suc- cess and distinction in his profession, that the present honor which he has received only re-enforces the views which are gaining such a stronghold, — that the civilian engineer merits a standing in all government engineering work on the same basis as the regularly commissioned officers. ~ Tersely, the object of the paper presented to the society was to collate certain observed facts for the purpose of explaining the physi- cal phenomena of harbor entrances, and of deducing therefrom conclusions of practical value in the economical solution of the problem of improving the channels and shelterings of harbors. What was claimed in the paper as meriting the favorable judg- ment_of the society is briefly outlined by the author as follows :— “1, The determination of the character, direction, and relative intensities of the forces acting upon any harbor entrance, from a study of the submerged topography and other local physical fea- tures. “2, The discovery of the existence of typical form, in the sandy spits bordering the entrance, which will in general indicate the direc- tion of the resultant movement. “3. The recognition of the fact that the proper place for the ebb discharge, or channel over the bar, is as far removed as may be from the point of direct attack of the flood resultant, when the direction of the latter is not normal to the coast. “4. The definite enunciation of the principle that the trend of the ‘coast with reference to the cotidal line will in general indicate at once the proper position for defensive works. “5. The presentation of an original form (in plan) of break- water, whereby the natural agencies are materially aided, without serious interference with either the flood or ebb forces. “6, A method of improvement whereby the internal currents are ‘concentrated and conserved for more efficient scour after passing the gorge. “7. A plan for utilizing the natural tendencies of the flood to cut a beach channel which shall be available for the lighter-draught vessels. “8, The enunciation of the principle that the cause of the angular movement of the ebb stream after egress is due to the general form of the exterior coast-line, which causes a racing of the tidal crests, from the outer capes towards the bight of the bay, and that the flood components thus generated are the forces which build the bars and shift the inlets. This incessant semi-diurnal action of the flood is the controlling element in the forces affecting the magnitude and position of the bar. Storms and winds may modify and shift the deposits, but eventually the flood re-establishes the original conditions. “9. The free circulation and ingress given to the flood by the detached breakwater, so designed as both to oppose the flood and produce interfering waves which deposit sand outside of the chan- nel, whilst it also aids the ebb in its attack on the bar by defending its channel and concentrating its volume. “To. For a given site and stage of water, the flood movement approaches in the same direction, hence the resisting and regulat- ing works should be placed on the near side of the proposed chan- nel. If on the far side, they would be worse than useless, unless for shore protection. “J1. No artificial re-opening of an outlet which has been closed by this flood component can be maintained without auxiliary works to deflect and modify its action. Dredging is only justified when the interests of navigation are sufficient to maintain a continuance of the expense, and no other reasonable methods are available. SCIENCE: 77 “12. The ability resulting from these general principles to con- struct works requiring a lesser linear development which will pro- duce greater navigable depths at less cost. “13. The abolition of the risks and difficulties attending the navigation of narrow jetty entrances in times of danger. “14. It frequently happens that the requirements of navigation and tidal concentration are conflicting: the former demanding wide entrances; the latter, on account of insufficient tidal volume, narrow ones. This debars the usual jetties, and prevents improve- ment. The plans herein proposed are eminently adapted to meet such contingencies.” The last-mentioned condition applies in a significant way to the conditions at Absecon and other inlets. The phenomena of tidal movements, and their bearing upon the formation and destruction of barriers in harbor basins, are of course influenced not only by the topography of the coast-line, but by that of the bottom of the harbor itself, both of which features are in turn perpetuated or changed in form by the relative resistance of the material forming the bottom of the harbor, and the direction and force of currents due to fresh water and tidal movements, winds, and waves. Yet, at the same time, little has been correctly understood as to the laws governing these movements. The new conditions which Professor Haupt so ably enunciates in his paper throw much light on the study of the history of our offshore water- ways, as shown by an inspection of those extending along the At- lantic coast, as exhibited by the Coast Survey charts. This is particularly realized in an examination of our southern bay, extend- ing from Cape Florida to Cape Hatteras, and of our middle bay, from Cape Hatteras to Nantucket. The application by Professor Haupt, of his principles and discovery to local conditions along this coast-line, is unique and forcible. It is certainly evident to an in- telligent and experienced engineer, as Professor Haupt himself in- dicates, that, if it is proposed to aid nature, the engineer ‘‘ must so design his external works as to prevent the flood-tide from carrying sand into the channel to obstruct the ebb and require more work of it for its removal.” His system is based upon an internal con- centration of the ebb currents in their path to the gorge, and of their external conservation after passing through this section to the ocean. A paper narrating a discovery so important in ocean dynamics as this, cannot be fully reviewed or fairly treated in a brief space; but one of the most convincing arguments in support of the conditions enumerated above is the application of the discovery to the cause and direction of the tidal movements in Barnegat Inlet as bearing upon the location of the light-house which was erected in 1834, but which was subsequently destroyed prior to the erection of the second structure in 1858. This latter structure has been ineffec- tually ‘ protected’ by a system of jetties, and it is now evident, in the light of the investigation of this particular case, that the struc- ture has been improperly placed on the spit opposed to the flood re- sultant. If the light had been placed on the north spit, the interests of navigation would, no doubt, have been as well protected, and all the defensive works which have been constructed at great cost to the government would have been rendered entirely unnecessary. Lentz, in his ‘Ebb and Flow of Tides,’ says, “ The intricate, theoretical, tide-generating conditions are complicated by a number of circumstances, forming a bewildering labyrinth of causes and results, through which the human mind cannot find its way.” When one bears in mind such a statement from an authority so high, too much cannot be said in praise of Professor Haupt’s dis- covery in its bearing on “useful improvements relating to naviga- tion ’’ as well as “natural philosophy,” and of the high honor con- ferred upon him by the American Philosophical Society in award- ing him the Magellanic premium. Gx ASA: ’ EXPLORATION AND TRAVEL. Notes on the Geography of Labrador. THE December number of the Bulletin of the American Geo- graphical Soczety contains a paper by A. S. Packard on the physi- cal geography of Labrador. The paper is accompanied by a map of Labrador, compiled by F. Leuthner, and said to show the present state of our knowledge. It is founded on the British 78 Admiralty maps and a manuscript map by S. Weiz, a Moravian missionary who visited the northern parts of the coast of Lab- rador. The latter was published in January, 1869, in the J7/7zsszos- blatt aus der Briidergemeinde, and we reprint it here side by side with the latest British Admiralty map (No. 863, Hudson Bay and Strait) for comparison. It will be seen that the geographical posi- tions, as well as the coast-lines, show many discrepancies; so much Rennthier Gegend Nordspitze S.Weiz.. | 1868. SGIENCE: [Vou. XI. No. 263 mark, “ Large corrections: April, 1882, June, 1885,” show Greely’s discoveries, but not the valuable work done by Danish, American, German, and French explorers. The same is the case in the sheet mentioned above, which was published in 1884. Evidently neither Weiz’s nor the British maps are founded on reliable observations. Weiz’s route on board the schooner ‘ Meta’ is shown on his map, and it will be seen that he did not visit the deep fiords. The so, that it is impossible to compile them into one map. The posi- tions of the admiralty map are comparatively correct; but it may be assumed that the outlines of the coast, and the names and posi- tions of the islands, are better on Weiz’s map, as he gathered his information from Eskimo who are well acquainted with the coast. Unfortunately the admiralty maps of these regions are not up to date, and are therefore extremely deficient. The maps ‘ Arctic Sea ’ (No. 2177), for instance, the eastern sheet of which bears the nomenclature of the British maps is very deficient, the local names. of places being misspelled so as to become almost unintelligible. As we find, instead of 7, 7 in most parts of the coast, I concluded that the original is a manuscript of a German missionary, the 7 in a German handwriting being similar to an English /. Besides the explorations mentioned by Packard, a considerable amount of work has been done in Labrador and the adjacent parts of the country. Lake Mistassini was explored in 1884-85 by an FEBRUARY 17, 1888.] expedition sent out jointly by the Geological Survey of Canada and the commissioner of crown lands of Quebec. The latter has re- cently sent surveyors who explored the numerous rivers emptying into the St. Lawrence. I mention particularly C. E. Forgues’s sur- vey of the rivers St. John, Mingan, Natashquan, and Esquimaux. Last summer the missionary Edmund James Peck succeeded in crossing Labrador from Richmond Bay to Ungava Bay. Green Island, in Hudson Bay, as shown on Packard’s map, does not exist according to observations made by Gordon on his expeditions to Hudson Bay. Thearchives of the Department of Marine of France possess a number of manuscript maps of Hudson Strait, which, however, have not been published. - 4 A N wy qugutsit 6% op J Opemgevile o> ayias" Sie ee) nes LABRADOR, FROM THE BRITISH ADMIRALTY MAP NO. 863. An interesting sketch of the physical geography of Labrador was given by Dr. R. Koch, who wintered in Nain in 1882-83, and visited the stations of the Moravian missionaries. He describes the country in the Deutsche Geographische Blitter (vol. vii. No. 2, 1884). The outlying islands are barren and destitute of vegetation ; the valleys adjoining the bays and fiords, however, have beautiful forests of pine and larch, surrounding dark, quiet lakes. Towards the moun- tainous region the woods are lighter, and the numerous dead trunks testify to their struggle against the gales of winter. Travelling by sledge westward from Nain, the plateau of the interior is reached after four or five days’ travel, of about thirty miles each, through fiord-like valleys. After one or two days more, the height of the land is reached. The height of the land approaches the shore in the northern parts of the peninsula, being only one day’s journey SCIENCE. | 79 distant from Rama. The narrower the mountainous district be- comes, the higher it is. Near Hoffenthal the mountains do not exceed a few hundred feet in height. At Nain the mountains close by the sea are from eight hundred to twelve hundred feet high. The Kiglapait, between Nain and Okak, have an elevation of several thousand feet. North of Hebron the country is alpine in character, the mountains rising almost vertically from the sea. Deep, nar- row fiords intersect the coast, which is not sheltered by islands from the heavy swell of the ocean. But, although the peaks attain a great height, no extensive snow-fields and glaciers are found. From Hebron to Komaktorvik there are hardly any islands off the coast, but farther north it is skirted by innumerable dangerous rocks. Near Rama, Koch ascended a mountain twenty-six hun- dred feet in height. He describes the scene as very grand: “ At my feet I saw the deep bluish-green fiord surrounded by steep, wall- like cliffs. The mountains were covered with shrubs colored red by the first frost of the season. To the left spreads the dark blue ocean, with its greenish-white icebergs. On the opposite side of the fiord, and towards the west, extended steep and ragged moun- tains, and narrow gorge-like valleys, in one of them a dark lake, the water of which, black as ink, reflected the high peaks. In the interior I saw mountains rising to still greater heights, and covered with fresh snow extending north and south as far as I could see. The highest points of this range are opposite the island of Aulat- sivik, and reach elevations of from eight thousand to nine thousand feet. While mountains less than fifteen hundred or two thousand feet in height are rounded, and bear evidence of having been covered by glaciers, the ragged forms of the higher mountains show no such signs.’ Continuing, Koch describes the terraces and lakes formed by the rivers and the old beaches, which he found in several bays as high as one hundred feet above the level of the sea. Some additional information is cdntained in the publication of the reports of the German polar stations of the international sys- tem. Since Koch’s visit to Labrador, meteorological observations are being made at all missionary stations of the Labrador coast, which are of particular value as filling the wide gap between the system of Canada and the Danish stations in Greenland. PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL REVERSION. WRITERS on evolution, and especially Darwin, have endeavored to explain many curious facts in the forms, colors, and general ap- pearance of animals by reversion to a condition existing in ances- tors more or less remote. As this explanation has seemed to be the only one that met the cases, it has been largely accepted. But, so far as 1 know, physiological and pathological reversion in the sense in which the terms are used in this paper, has not been em- ployed to any appreciable degree by writers of any class to explain phenomena which seem to me to gather fresh interest around them, and appear in a new light when thus viewed.’ By physiological re- version I mean a return toa condition functionally similar to,if not identical with, that existing in some lower form; and by pathologi- cal reversion, an analogous result dependent on a disordered con- dition (disease). It is now almost superfluous to point out that the embryo of the highest mammals passes through stages of development closely al- lied to the permanent forms of groups of animals lower in the scale. But that there is also a close functional resemblance in many particulars has not been much insisted upon. The subjectis so large that the various adaptations in the embryo to an environ- ment that is but temporary can be only indicated, and not treated in detail. It is plain that the embryo of the mammal, being sur- rounded by a fluid medium and drawing the oxygen supplies for its tissues independently of any actual contact with an atmosphere, must resemble functionally aquatic animals proper in many respects. It breathes by the placenta, virtually as the fish and other aquatic animals by gills. The condition of the blood puts it on a par with lower forms ; and, even in the highest intra-uterine stage of develop- 1 Jt was not till long after this paper had been written, and a considerable time after it had been read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Montreal, that I became aware that the principle involved in the discussion had been previously announced by Dr. Milner Fothergill of London in a communication printed in the Wedicad Press and Circular for August, 1886. I am glad, however, to be able to make this acknowledgment on behalf of so bold and original a writer as Dr. Fothergill. 80 ment, the blood supplied to the tissues is not completely aerated, — a condition remaining in all forms lower than the birds. Many functions peculiar to the mammal, or, if not actually characteristic, but indifferently developed in lower forms, are still less marked in the mammalian embryo. If there be consciousness, it is of that ob- scure kind existing only in forms of life low in the scale. Re- flexes, indeed, there are in abundance, and probably much nervous automatism; but such limited action of the nervous system is pre- cisely what distinguishes lower from higher groups of animals. - Nor is the adaptation of the newly born mammal to its surround- ings immediate. Throughout the first days of the life of the in- fant, such adaptation is very imperfect, and in consequence many children perish. Further, the resemblance of the infant to animals of lower groups is shown in many directions, and especially in the neuroses and psychoses. ‘The study of infant psychology has of late attracted much attention, and promises most instructive results. Turning from embryonic and infantile life to the opposite pole of existence, old age, there is much that points in the direction of re- version. It is not a matter of great importance whether we regard this as physiological or pathological. Shakspeare’s unrivalled description of the epochs (biological and psychological) of human life will occur to many readers. We must not, however, push the resemblances between the infantile and senile stages too far. There is sometimes a functional likeness which can scarcely be con- sidered genuine physiological reversion, although it is a species of functional reversion, for the consequences are the same. But in general in both conditions there is an imperfect adaptation to the environment. Moreover, in certain respects the old man reverts rather to the functional condition of lower forms of life than directly to a previous stage in his own existence. Thus the imperfect ac- tion of the respiratory, circulatory, cutaneous, and also of the nervous system, by which the functions of the cerebrum and the senses are weakened, are all either physiological or pathological reversions, as we choose to regard the matter. But it is not’on such facts, however, that I would rely to establish the principles of this paper. In the various stages of slow or natural death, we have the clearest evidence of physiological reversion in not one but many different systems of the body. Normally expiration is largely passive, though possibly less so than the text-books of physiology have represented ; but, as is well known, in the dying man this phase, and indeed all phases, of the respiratory act are in turn or contemporaneously modified : there may be a diminution of one phase, and an exaggeration of another, etc. In the frog and turtle both inspiration and expira- tion are active: in such animals we recognize a function, moreover, of the mouth and pharynx, in respiration, normally unknown in man. Dr. Garland has, however, pointed out that in the tracheot- omized dog, and, as he believes, in man under the same circum- stances, and also in the moribund, a form of the throat respiration supervenes. Hehas proved this experimentally in the tracheotomized dog (Journal of Physzology, vol. ii.). In other words, there is a resemblance to what exists normally in the frog. Garland recog- nized this, though he has not spoken of it as a physiological rever- sion. But apart from this minor reversion, it is plain that in general the respiration of the dying bears a resemblance to that of the groups with an active phase in both halves of theact. Further, there is frequently a marked facial and laryngeal respiration, so well seen in the normal breathing of such lower mammals as the rabbit. Accompanying this alteration in the respiration, there is a great change in the circulation. As I have shown, as the result of a special study of the subject ( The Rhythm and Innervation of the Heart of the Sea-Turtle,’ Journal of Anatomy and Physzology, vol. xxi.), functional action ceases in the hearts of the cold-blooded animals invariably in acertain order; that is to say, the parts latest developed phylogenetically, as the ventricles, are the first to cease to act. The same applies to the mammal, and I have elsewhere (‘A Physiological Basis for an Improved Cardiac Pathology,’ Medical Record, Oct. 22, 1887) expressed the conviction that it is fortunate for man that such is the case. It is difficult to see how the ventricles could retain at once that sensitiveness and power to adapt to the ceaseless and innumerable changes in the inner life SCIENCE. [Vou. XI. No. 263 of a mammal, and also the resistance so marked in the auricles and the great veins at their junction with the right auricle, corre- sponding to the szzzs venosus of lower forms. Now, in the mori- bund there may be only an occasional beat of the ventricles to several of the other parts of the heart; or the ventricles may pulsate so feebly as to expel but little blood: hence the latter becomes gradually more venous, with corresponding effects in the venous channels, which become more prominent; in the nutrition, lead- ing to lowered temperature generally most pronounced in the parts most distant from the heart; in gradual loss of all the func- tions of the cerebrum; finally, the only muscles that are function- ally active are the respiratory, the sphincters, etc. In a word, the dying human subject sinks functionally lower and lower in the scale of animal life. There is physiological reversion of the widest kind. This seems the most instructive aspect of the facts; indeed, I can see no other way in which a really philosophical significance can be read into such phenomena. It may be readily perceived that in sleep itself there is a daily reversion. Sleep not only reduces all human beings to the one level, but it puts all mammals on the one plane. Now, it will be seen, if we consider the nervous system, that the parts peculiar to man, or most developed in man, are the very ones that for the time being are as good as annihilated in sleep. Why should this be so ? Why should this order be followed? To say that the parts of the nervous system remaining functionally active are those necessary to maintain the vital functions, in reality throws no light on the ques- tion unless we regard man as derived from lower forms, while the whole becomes clear enough if we admit this. Much the same line of argument applies to the reversions witnessed in hypnotism, somnambulism, and allied phenomena. Hibernation is one of the most interesting examples of physio- logical reversion to be found. We witness in the bat, though one of the most active of animals, a return during hibernation to a con- dition very much like that normally present in a cold-blooded animal such as the turtle; while the cold-blooded groups themselves pass into a winter sleep allied to the quiescent state of plants or the ‘resting stage’ of the infusorians. Reversion alone — physiologi- cal reversion — seems to explain such behavior. These general phenomena prepare us to understand certain results following experiment, which, so far as I know, physiologists have never explained satisfactorily. I shall take my illustration chiefly from cases mentioned in the ordinary text-books, and es- pecially from the magnificent work of Prof. M. Foster, as in that we find subjects usually considered from different points of view. It has been pointed out that if the nerves supplying the posterior pair of lymph hearts in the frog be divided, though their action ceases for atime, it is eventually resumed; that if the sino-auricu- lar junction of the heart of the turtle be ligatured under favorable circumstances, the action of the auricles and ventricle, tempora- rily arrested, may be resumed. In general, if the sinus, or the sinus and auricles, be ligatured off from the ventricle in a frog or turtle, and all the cardiac nerves be divided (precluding the possibility of nervous stimuli reaching them from distinct centres), these parts of the organ, I have observed, will beat more forcibly against the unusual resistance than before. It is stated, that, when the cervical sympathetic is divided, the dilatation and cessation of rhythmic action of the arteries in the ear of the normal rabbit, ensuing, are finally followed by a return to the normal condition. The latter has been explained by the assumption of a local ner- vous mechanism, which, though habitually influenced by the central nervous system, suffices of itself when the connection with the nerve-centres is severed; but such local nerve-mechanism has never been demonstrated anatomically. These and many similar cases are explicable by physiological reversion. In lower forms,! in which it is quite impossible to believe in a local nervous mechan- ism at all, there is pulsation in vessels, etc., owing to the rhythmical action of unstriped muscular fibre or of cardiac muscle. This func- tion of the muscle is no’ doubt under the control of the nerve- centres in all the higher groups of animals ; and when itis exhibited apart from such connection, we naturally seek for an explanation, 1 This subject is discussed in my paper on the ‘ Causation of the Heart-Beat,’ etc., in the Caxada Medical and Surgical ¥ournal, January, 1887. FEpruary 17, 1888. ] To my mind, the only one adequate is to be sought in physiological reversion. Whether there are not examples of it even when the nervous system is intact, as in excessive action of the bladder, ureter, etc., in cases of obstruction, is worthy of consideration. Dr. Pye-Smith (Journal of Phystology, vol. viii.) has maintained, from certain experiments made by him, that the vessels of the ear of the rabbit, etc., do not regain their tone after section of the nerves concerned, and concludes that nerves are not essential to nutrition. However it may be as to the first proposition, I cannot help thinking that the author’s conclusions are broad to the verge of decided error when applied beyond the case in point. Assuming, however, that in most instances the vessels do not regain tone, I should interpret the case as one of still more remote reversion to a condition when nerves were not required for nutri- tion, —a condition existing in several large groups of animals. Such a case in the mammal must be very rare, however, and is offset by thousands of facts that show that nutrition is dependent on nervous connection. It would appear that oxygen may be ab- sorbed both from the skin and the alimentary canal ; and, if we may judge by many analogous instances, this capacity would be aug- mented when the individual greatly needed such help, owing to imperfect action of the lungs. In such instances we have, on the one hand, a retained function operating in man to a very minor degree; but, as is now well known, in batrachians the skin is an important respiratory organ, though also one acting very much in a manner supplementary to the lungs, as circumstances neces- sitate. Whenin man the skin and alimentary canal function as re- spiratory organs to an unusual degree, we have physiological or pathological reversion. It is well known that in certain pathological conditions (hysteria, etc.) large quantities of gas are secreted by the alimentary tract; nor is this so surprising when it is remembered that the digestive canal and the respiratory organs have a common origin from the same cell layers of the embryo. If our swallowed oxygen can be absorbed by the alimentary canal, of which there is no reasonable doubt, it is plain that we re- tain a function discharged by an analogous organ, the air-bladder of fishes.’ Certain groups of turtles (if not all, occasionally, as I be- lieve) have a species of pharyngeal respiration. Oxygen is ab- sorbed from the water gulped into the pharynx, and possibly the case of absorption of gases from the alimentary canal of mammals is still more like this than the analogous instances already men- tioned ; but, at all events, there is a potential capacity in the ali- mentary tract of man for respiratory functions which is unquestion- ably under certain circumstances considerably developed; and the most natural explanation is physiological reversion, In an allied system, the renal, we have evidences of physiological reversion. In most fevers the skin is less active, and the kidneys function excessively or at least differently ; the urine, though scanty in quantity, is of high specific gravity, and thus resembles more the same secretion in not only lower mammals, but the lower divisions of vertebrates. Ina whole host of diseases* there is a great in- crease of a constituent which is but scantily present in normal urine, —uric acid. But uric acid replaces urea in fishes, reptiles, and birds; and in not a few cases in man in which the uric acid is increased the urea secretion is diminished. That man’s kidneys should thus have the capacity to function in a manner analogous to those of lower forms, calls for explanation. The fact that in such cases the reversion does not wholly cover the functional dis- turbance arising from or giving rise to this change, is not a seri- ous objection ; for it is not to be supposed that an animal adapted to new conditions should, by any reversion to an ancestral state, escape wholly, or even in great part, the penalties of incomplete adaptation. In the digestive system of man and other mammals we have in- teresting instances of physiological and pathological reversion. Re- gurgitation of food is normal in some birds, and I am inclined to be- lieve that it is more common in lower vertebrates than has been as yet clearly ascertained. But the remarkable regurgitation of ruminants seems to be a specially developed function. Different groups of 1 See a paper by Gage in the Proceedings of the American Association, vol. xxxiv. 2 The writer discussed the subject of uric acid in a short paper in the Medical WVews for June 27, 1885. SCIENCE: 81 animals vomit with very varying degrees of facility. There is to my own knowledge in man a tendency to antiperistalsis in the cesophagus, if not the pharynx, incependent of acid eructations. Some individuals experience this when there is interference with the regularity of the action of the bowels. Cases have been re- ported in which there seemed to be habitual regurgitation of food, like that of birds or even ruminants. Here again the most natural explanation seems to be that the alimentary canal of mammals, in- cluding man, retains a capacity to revert to a condition existing in a higher degree in antecedent forms; or, to interpret the matter slightly otherwise, that man retains a capacity which in some lower forms has been specially developed (ruminants, etc.), and which in himself, under certain abnormal circumstances, becomes greatly developed, — facts explicable by general community of descent. In the cases in man referred to above, the mere law of habit does not of itself suffice to explain the facts: indeed, apart from the wider laws of descent, there is very little basis for the action of such a principle; there is no fulcrum for the lever, or, at best, a very unsteady one. In diseases of the blood or blood-forming organs we have some remarkable instances of functional reversion, Though exact quantitative determinations of hemoglobin are wanting for most lower vertebrates, there can be do doubt that in mammals the quan- tity of this substance furnished to the system within a given time is much greater than in those groups requiring less oxygen for their tissues, in conse quence of a feebler cell activity. But in cases of anemia in man the quantity of haemoglobin may be greatly dimin- ished, one result of which is that the subject is reduced not only as regards the condition of the blood, but in several other respects, to a state bearing a more or less close resemblance to life in the lower vertebrates. There is diminished activity in the locomotor, the nervous, and other systems of the body. The subject requires rest, careful feeding, quiet of the mind, etc. The treatment is uncon- sciously based on this fact of reversion. It may be stated, in truth, that the anzemic subject is unable to discharge the functions which are most characteristic of man, and that he naturally deports him- self like a lower form. In leukemia there is a still more marked reversion, for the blood in this disease approaches the condition found in the invertebrates, in which, as a rule, the red blood cell or hemoglobin in any form is wanting. This being the case, it is not surprising that the disturbance of the normal functions is so great: the marvel is rather at man’s capacity to adapt at all to such unnatural conditions; which, however, is clearer on the doctrine of descent from lower forms and in the light of the conception of physiological reversion than by any other explanation. In that form of anemia or chlorosis due to an imperfectly de- veloped vascular system generally, we surely have a clear instance of reversion, so marked that during the whole lifetime of the indi- vidual there may never be other than the most defective adaptation to environment. Instances of cyanosis due to permanence of foetal conditions of the circulation, and therefore resembling those normal to the frog and turtle, are such clear cases of human reversion as only to re- quire mention. In cases of valvular diseases with dilatation of the heart, or in- deed any condition of this organ that permits of regurgitation with imperfectly aerated blood, we have similarly a reversion. It will be found that in not a few diseases of the heart, — in the condition of that organ during fainting; after shocks which have temporarily suspended many functions of the nervous system, and in conse- quence greatly imperilled life, —in all such cases it will be found that those parts of the heart the earliest developed in the history of the animal series are the very parts to continue their action latest. Now, this is at once fortunate for the mammal, and of great sig- nificance, inasmuch as the latest investigations show in the clearest way that the action of the ventricles is dependent on the functional integrity of the sinus and auricles, especially of the sinus. Suppose that the reverse were the case, and the sinus (or great veins) and auricles were the first to cease pulsating: the beat of the ventricle would be of comparatively little use; but apart from this, what explanation can be given of this peculiar sequence in the mammal independently of derivation from lower forms, which makes all clear? If this doctrine of physiological reversion went 2 SCIENCE: no further than the circulatory system, it would throw a flood of light on the significance of otherwise obscure if not absolutely in- explicable phenomena. But it is to the nervous system that we must look for evidence which places the doctrine beyond cavil to a degree perhaps not equally clear in other parts of the economy. When a mammal is poisoned by curare, by which the nervous influences normally reaching the tissues and regulating heat-pro- duction (and, as I believe, nutrition) are wholly or partially cut off, the mammal becomes virtually a cold-blooded animal. Its tem- perature rises and falls with that of the ambient air. This is one clear example of physiological reversion experimentally produced. It is, however, only one of many that might be instanced. It is well-known, and can be shown in the simplest manner, that when the head of a frog is removed, reflex action is more readily excited : the same applies to the removal of the cerebral lobes of the mam- mal. As Goltz has pointed out, one of the most remarkable results following removal of large portions of the cerebral lobes in the dogs which this experimenter kept under observation, is, as I can myself testify, the increase of reflex action. The animal becomes a sort of machine, which one may manipulate at will. A similar result follows in man when the higher centres of the cerebrum are rendered functionally inactive by disease or injury. Now, in all these cases the animal loses its own peculiar charac- ter, and sinks to the level of some form lower in the scale. All will agree that the higher forms of true automatic (Spontaneous) action in the physiological sense are dependent on the existence of the cerebrum. It follows, therefore, that the lower we pass in the scale of life, the more machine-like animals become. Pathological reversion is most plainly illustrated by the results of hemorrhage into the cerebrum. Dr. Hughlings-Jackson has so well described the order and relation of the various events, that I shall here quote his own words in describing lesions of the cerebrum (corpus strzatum), from hemorrhage : — “Tt will be found that those parts suffer most and suffer longest which have the more voluntary uses. This is notorious of the arm and leg: the arm nearly always suffers more, and recovers later, than the leg. Of course, the distinction into complete and incom- plete hemiplegia is artificial. There are all degrees of paralysis according to degrees of gravity of the lesion. But there is an order in which paralysis increases in increasing gravity of lesions. We observe that the graver the lesion, not only are the more voluntary parts (arm and leg) #zore paralyzed, but that the further spread in range is the paralysis, and the method of its spreading is from the more voluntary to the more automatic parts. Thus, neglecting very small clots, a considerable lesion paralyzes only the most vol- untary movements of one side of the body, those of the face, arm, and leg, and these parts in degree according to their degree of vol- untary use. A larger lesion not only causes a deeper and more permanent palsy of these three parts, but it leads also to implica- tion of more automatic parts. In still larger lesions the palsy spreads to the szos¢ automatic parts of the body, even to parts sup- plied by ganglionic nerves. It produces stertor from palsy of the palate and palsy of the respiratory muscles and of the heart, — the palsy of respiration and of the heart showing itself chiefly in sZow- ness of movement. There is also abasement of temperature.” — REYNOLDS'’s System of Medicine, vol. i. I have intentionally quoted the exact words of this eminent in- vestigator of the abnormalities of the nervous system constituting disease, so that their interpretation alone may rest with me. It being granted that the lower we pass in the scale of animal life the more machine-like or automatic does the organism be- come, it will be clear, that, taking the various degrees or grades of paralysis as described above, we have likewise degrees of resem- blance to lower forms ; i.e., the graver the paralysis, the lower in the scale must we seek to find an animal comparable to man in this condition. The slowing of the heart and the lowering of the tem- perature are both modes of approach to the normal functional con- dition in cold-blooded animals. When we add to this, or take by itself, paralysis of the muscles of the face, by which the expression peculiar to man is lost, we have a condition plainly like that in lower mammals, and, in extreme cases, even like that of the lower vertebrates, in which facial expression as determined by muscular action is minimal. [VoL 20. No» 263 It must be conceded that the uneducated deaf-mute is in a con- dition mentally much nearer that of the higher mammals than is his uneducated fellow-man in possession of all his senses. But in aphasia, the result of disease or shock, there is in man plainly a marked reversion to a condition mentally resembling that in the ‘dumb-brutes’ about him. In the case of the idiot we have an example of man in many re- spects inferior to the higher mammals. But it is not my intention to treat the subject of psychological reversion in this paper. The subject is at once large, tempting, and, to my mind, furnishes evidence the most conclusive for the doc- trine of descent with modification from lower forms as an expla- nation of man’s nature. One naturally looks about for an explanation of such remarkable facts as the order of muscular failure or paralysis as indicated in the paragraph quoted above. The entire brain may be separated from the medulla in a rabbit, and respiration still continue. The lower we descend in the animal scale, the more do we find the brain reduced to a mere repository for mechanisms adapted to regulate those processes constituting the so-called vegetative func- tions ; but the question again and again recurs, ‘ Why in mammals, why in man, should the functions first to fail be those peculiar to them or to him, and not the reverse ?’ The longer even in the lifetime of a single individual a certain form of muscular action has been practised, the less attention is required for its performance, the less voluntary, the more auto- matic it becomes. But would the duration of man’s existence on this planet suffice to explain, on any system of gradual progression or functional improvement, the wonderful automatic action of all of those mechanisms essential to the maintenance of life ? The doctrine of descent renders the whole plain enough; and unless we adopt the view that man appearec suddenly and inde- pendently upon the scene, fully equipped for the battle of life, it seems but rational to assume that with all his departures, both by way of progress and retrogression, his functions are what they are by reason of such relationship as we are indicating. The morphol- ogists have done much to account for the affinities of form or structure in the animal series : it remains for the physiologists to do their part in showing how the functions of the higher animals are related to the functions of the lower. But once accepting this position, it is possible to explain phenom- ena following experiments on animals, and growing out of the ex- periments disease is producing, or, as I would prefer to say, the phenomena which are the deviations from the normal that consti- tute disease. Disease is no entity in itself, though we often use language which might lead to the belief that we so conceived of it. When the normal adaptations to environment on which the very existence of an animal depends are disturbed, what more natural than that there should be a return to a functional condition preva- lent in some ancestral group, or common to a host of such groups, as the case may be ? T. WESLEY MILLS. BOOK -REVIEWS. Animal Magnetism. By ALFRED BINET and CHARLES FERE. (Internat. Scient. Series.) New York, Appleton, 12°. THE nation that brought forth Mesmer, with his glittering dis- play of charlatanry, has well atoned for this injury by bringing the study of hypnotism into general scientific recognition, and develop- ing with a remarkable activity our knowledge of this obscure re- gion of the human mind. Nowhere are so many men of science practically engaged in the study of hypnotic phenomena in all their various manifestations, nowhere are subjects so plentiful or so in- teresting, nowhere do we find so vast or so sound and constantly increasing a literature devoted to this field, nowhere else a journal devoted exclusively to the study of hypnotism, as in France. Al- though much that has been developed there is doubtless destined to be revised or rejected, yet the work is eminently scientific, and with few exceptions the workers have never deserted the field of painstaking, methodic study for the temptation of enlarging upon remarkable facts, liable to attract the popular imagination. The admission of a work on this subject into the International Scientific Series is therefore eminently fitting, and it is also right that the work thus honored should come from Paris, and more particularly FEBRUARY 17, 1888. from two pupils of Charcot, to whom, more than toany other single person, the admission of hypnotism as an accredited scientific pro- ceeding is due. The work itself is very well arranged, and introduces for the first time to English readers a fairly complete account of the mod- ern studies in hypnotism, Our literature in this field is mostly con- _ cerned with the proofs of the genuineness of the states and accounts of remarkable performances, to the exclusion of the systematic study of the symptoms. The opening chapters are devoted to a concise history of hypnotism since Mesmer. The fate of this pretentious adventurer is full of interest. Mesmer appeared with his gigan- tic presumption, and offered a series of dogmatic propositions about the magnetic fluid coursing through the universe and influencing men. He next demonstrated to the satisfaction of the wealthy and frivolous Parisians the curative powers of this fluid. And his suc- cess was unparalleled ; but, like that of most adventurers, his down- fall was equally hurried. In 1784 a commission, including among its members Franklin, Bailly, and Lavoisier, was appointed to ex- amine into the phenomena; and with commendable good sense they demonstrated the utter baselessness of Mesmer’s pretensions, and ascribed all that occurred to the action of the imagination in nervously disposed individuals. Again and again is this same pro- cess repeated. A bold experimenter claims to have performed some remarkable feat; a commission is appointed, finds the pretension unwarranted, and dismisses the whole topic. A valuable prize was for several years open for any one who could read with a bandage across his eyes, as several subjects claimed to do, but no one ever successfully passed the tests. At last the scientific men were forced to the conclusion, that, while the more remarkable of the phenom- ena were probably exaggerated, enough remained to merit a real investigation, and that to refer every thing to the action of the imagination was no real explanation at all. This recognition was all that was necessary to give the impulse to the study of hypnotism as a more or less morbid manifestation of the nervous system. The next chapters are devoted to the methods of producing the several kinds of hypnosis and the symptoms of the several stages. Here the authors follow Charcot’s well-known three states, — leth- argy, catalepsy, and somnambulism. These states are marked off from one another by distinct physical symptoms, and, though we have no satisfactory explanation of the reason why the raising or closing of the eye should cause certain subjects to pass from one to the other, yet the phenomena seem well enough established to be accepted as empirical facts. Again, the stages are found pure and typical only in hysterical hypnosis ; and many subjects exhibit only one or two stages, and the symptoms manifested frequently diverge from what is here considered typical. The account of the symp- toms is largely restricted to the more purely physical ones, which, though less striking, are much more convincing and valuable to the scientist. The writings of the pulse and the respiration, and of the curve of muscular fatigue, are figured, and speak more plainly than pages of description. The psychological process most admirably illustrated by hypnot- ic subjects is that of suggestion, and to this Binet and Féré wisely devote a liberal portion of their pages. This process is simply un- usually active in the hypnotic subject: it is exemplified daily in the influence of a strong-willed person over a weaker, of the teacher over the scholar; in short, “we have only to glance at social rela- tions in order to see that individuals fall into two categories, — the leaders and the led; that is, the givers and the recipients of suggestions.” These suggestions can be taken up by any of the senses, and, in brief, suggestion may be defined as the execution of an act through the intervention of the psychic faculties, the original impulse coming from another individual. One school of students of hypnotism (often known as the School of Nancy) regard all the facts observed in hypnotic states as due to suggestion, conscious or unconscious; and their explanation of such phenomena as the action of a magnet in transferring sensations from one side to the other, of the supposed action of drugs at a distance, of mind-reading, is that these effects are due to the unconscious suggestion of the re- sults by the operator. The hypnotic state makes the subject keenly on the alert for the remotest hint; and many. cases where the ex- pected has been guessed at with a remarkable shrewdness, far be- yond the capabilities of the subject ina normal condition, are on SCIENCE. 83 record. The Paris school, on the other hand, regard suggestion as. applicable to only a portion of the phenomena, and hold that cer- tain purely physical symptoms are produced with which conscious- ness has nothing to do. For example: the methods of inducing sleep by passes, intense fixation, etc., the Nancy school regard as devices for impressing the mind of the subject with the idea that he is to be hypnotized, and that the same results follow from any signal to which the subject is accustomed ; while the Paris school regard these physical manceuvres as of peculiar efficiency and in- fluence upon the nervous system. Both schools agree that the process of suggestion is the key to a majority of the more striking hypnotic phenomena, and that a knowledge of the possibilities of suggestion is indispensable to every student of what is now termed ‘psychic research.’ The chapter dealing with hypnotic hallucinations is full of in- terest. The instances of unilateral hallucinations, in which only one-half of the body, one eye, one ear, or whatever it may be, has. responded to a suggestion, lead one to connect with them the theories regarding the action of the two halves of the brain. An important part of the investigation concerns itself with the genuine- ness of these hallucinations, for this is the field where simulation is to be guarded against at every step. Binet and Féré have elabo- rated a series of tests, which leave no doubt as to the conclusion that these induced hallucinations are real in every sense. If they are visual, as most of them are, they are doubled and refracted if a prism be interposed between the eyes of the subject and the imagi- nary image; the image is enlarged or grows smaller, as the right or the wrong end of an opera-glass is put to the subject’s eyes ; and soon. Another interesting type of hallucination occurs when the subject conjures up from a blank card a picture or portrait at the command of the operator. If the card be inverted, the supposed picture is seen upside-down : if another precisely similar blank card is substituted, the change is instantly detected, for the imaginary picture vanishes. The explanation is, that the abnormally keen sight of the subject has detected upon the apparently uniform sur- face some little mark, some trifling irregularity, and that this is sufficient to arouse the suggested image. This view is supported, to mention one fact of many, by the observation that at a great dis- tance the subject no longer distinguishes between the card with which her hallucination was connected and other blank cards, while, if an opera-glass be given her, the image is again aroused when the right card is shown. Under the term ‘psychic paralysis,’ the authors bring together a most interesting series of facts, which would perhaps be more fit- tingly viewed as psychic inhibitions. The type of the psychic pro- cess here specified is easily made clear. A subject is given the sug- gestion that a certain person in the room is invisible. From that moment on, she does not see him. If he places himself in her way, she tries to avoid him, but is sorely perplexed to understand the nature of the obstacle. A hat placed upon the gentleman’s head is to her mysteriously suspended in the air, and so on. Now, in all such processes the subject sees every thing else: she has not been made blind, and the image of the invisible individual striking upon her retina makes her see him, in a sense. But the orders have been issued from the cortex that when such and such an image is. impressed upon the retina, it shall not be converted into a sensa- tion. While consciousness is at home, it is not at home to that particular sensation; or, as another writer has expressed it, it is the process we make use of when we cut a friend in the street. It is. not that we do not see him, but that we make ourselves believe as far as possible that we do not see him. This process (though it is not so original with the authors as they claim) is sure to yield in- teresting results from future study. The final chapters of the work deal with the question of the therapeutic value of hypnotism, its relation to the problems of re- sponsibility, and so on. On all these topics the authors hold very sound opinions, and are as keenly alive to the dangers and possible abuses of hypnotism as they are to its importance as a department of experimental psychology or as a curative agent. The volume can be warmly recommended to all anxious to ac- quire a familiarity with the most truly scientific work in this field, although it represents only one of many equally able productions of the French school. It shouldalso be remembered that the authors 84 are to some extent partisans of a definite school of hypnotism, and that some of the phenomena upon which they lay stress would be otherwise interpreted by other workers, or even entirely discredited. About nothing is this caution more necessary than the results these authors describe as due to the action of the magnet. As long as it has not been proved that the normal nervous system is to the slightest degree subject to magnetic influence, it seems premature to have it play so great a part in the observation of hysterical hypnotics; and the more so, as the same results have been ob- tained by suggestion; and, in so far as this has been ruled out, the results have failed to follow with other experimenters. Lectures on Bacterta. 2d ed. Tr. by H. E. F. Garnsey. I. B. Balfour. New York, Macmillan. 12°. $1.50. THIs book is a translation of De Bary’s ‘ Vorlesungen tiber Bac- terien,’ and, as Dr. Balfour states in his preface, has been prepared because there is at present no book in English which gives in like manner a general view of the subject of bacteria. It sets forth the known facts in the life of bacteria in their connection with those with which we are acquainted in other branches of natural history. The second edition of De Bary’s lectures appeared in October, 1886; so that we have the researches into this abstruse field of science brought down to a very recent date. In the introductory chapter the author considers the position which bacteria occupy in the vegetable kingdom among the fission-fungi or Schzzomycetes, and their structure. He then defines the meaning of the terms “coccus,’ ‘bacterium,’ and ‘spirillum.’ In speaking of these three forms, he says that they are so exactly represented by a billiard-ball, a lead-pencil, and a corkscrew, that no one requires for his instruc- tion the costly models which are offered for sale. The course of development of bacteria, and the distinction between the endosporous and arthrosporous groups, next receive attention. From this the author passes on to the consideration of the much- mooted question of whether there are specifically distinct forms, spe- cies of bacteria, and, if so, how many such species can be determined. In treating of this interesting topic, he says that species are deter- mined by the course of development, and defines the term ‘ species ’ as the sum-total of the separate individuals and generations which, during the time afforded for observation, exhibit the same periodi- cally repeated course of development within certain empirically de- termined limits of variation. In the list of those who believe that the bacteria may be distinguished into species, are Leeuwenhoeck, their discoverer, Ehrenberg, and Cohn. Among those who deny this, and who consider that the observed forms proceed alternately from one another, the one being converted into the other with a change in the conditions of life, are Billroth, who, in a publication issued in 1874, included all the many and various forms which he had exam- ined in one species, which he named Coccobacteria seftica; and Nageli, who has supported the same views since 1877. Nageli says that he finds no necessity for separating the thousands of bacterium-forms even into two species, but that it would be rash to speak decidedly on a subject that isso imperfectly explorede But he also says, that, if his view is correct, the same species, in the course of generations, assumes a variety of morphologically and physiologically dissimilar forms one after another, which, in the course of years and decades of years, at one time turn milk sour, at another give rise to butyric acid in ‘sauerkraut, or to ropiness in wine, or to putrefaction in albumen, or decompose urine, or im- part a red stain to food-material containing starch, or produce typhus, relapsing-fever, cholera, or malarial-fever. In commenting on this view of Nageli’s, De Bary truly says that our practical in- terests require that we should obtain a decided answer to the ques- tion of species; for it certainly is not a matter of indifference in medical practice, for example, whether a bacterium which is every- where present in sour milk or in other objects of food, but without being injurious to health, is capable or not of being changed at any moment into a form which produces typhus or cholera. The scien- tific interest demands that the question should be set at rest. The ‘opinion to which De Bary himself comes, in reference to this im- portant question, is that it may safely be maintained that continued investigation has at length arrived at the decision that there is no difference, as regards the existence of species and their determina- tion, between this and any other portion of the domain of natural Rev. by SCIENCE. [Vort. XI. No. 263 history, and that species may be distinguished provided the course of development is followed with sufficient attention. The origin and distribution of bacteria, their vegetative processes, the effects of temperature and the presence or absence of moisture upon them, and the subjects of culture, disinfection, and antisepsis, are discussed by the author, but lack of space prevents us from following him into these subjects in detail. One of the most interesting chapters in the book is that which treats of the causal connection of parasitic bacteria with infectious diseases, especially in warm-blooded animals. De Bary regards as proved the causal connection between the Spzrochete obermeteré and relapsing-fever, Koch's bacillus and tuberculosis, Neisser’s gonococcus and gonorrhcea, and Koch’s spirillum and Asiatic chol- era. Among the diseases due to the action of bacteria, he reckons also traumatic infectious diseases, affections incident to child-bear- ing, and others connected with the formation of groups of ulcers, abscesses, and boils. He does not think that we have any precise determination of the nature of the contagium or miasma virum of malaria. The relation of bacteria to typhoid-fever and diphtheria in men, he regards as uncertain, notwithstanding Goffky’s and Loffler’s model investigations. The concluding chapter of De Bary’s admirable véswzmé is concerned with the discussion of the diseases caused by bacteria in the lower animals and in plants, while this is followed by a conspectus of the literature of the sub- ject, and notes on the text. The whole volume is admirably ar- ranged, and we know of no book which gives so concise and at the same time satisfactory an account of bacteria as the one before us. It is well translated; and its revision by Dr. Balfour, who is pro- fessor of botany in the University of Oxford, is a sufficient guaranty of its scientific accuracy. Catalogue of the Pedagogical Library, Philadelphia. Philadel- phia, Board of Education. T2c8 WHEN Superintendent MacAlister went to Philadelphia from Milwaukee four or five years ago, he saw and felt the need of hav- ing at his command the best authorities on the history, science, and art of education. The Board of Education appreciated the need, and by liberal appropriations it has been made possible for Mr. MacAlister to get together the volumes for which he has now printed a catalogue. Naturally, he has only selected from the field of educational literature, and has made no attempts to cover it in all its extensiveness. What he has gotten together is a good work- ing pedagogical library, and ‘‘it is believed that the selection made furnishes the essentials for a pretty thorough study of the history and theory of education in the past, as well as ample materials for dealing with the living questions of our own time.” Therefore it is that this catalogue, while referring to this one collection only, really serves as a carefully selected bibliography of pedagogics. In this respect it is far more useful than that of Messrs. Hall and Mansfield, published a year or two ago. That is too diffuse to be really use- ful, and it is disfigured by hundreds of mistakes and typographical errors. We trust that professor MacAlister has printed a sufficiently large edition of his catalogue to permit its general sale. Natural Resources of the United States. New York, Appleton, By J. H. PATTON. T20e THE present volume is a concise review of the resources of the United States, compiled from the publications of the various Na- tional and State departments, and from private information obtained from the State governments. Therefore the data are presumably, as a rule, reliable ; and as the book deals not only with the mineral resources, but comprises others also, it will be found handy as a brief review of the whole subject. 324 of the 523 pages of the book are taken up by a report of the mineral resources, on which D, T. Day treats in his annual summaries. This part is fol- lowed by notes on mineral springs and health resorts. The follow- ing sections, dealing with the vegetable products of the United States, grain, fibre plants, and timber, are very superficial; that on grasses, such as are the basis of American stock-raising, is even more so, the whole subject being treated in nine pages. In the book we find a considerable number of remarks on physi- cal geography which show that the author’s knowledge of this sub- ject is not very extensive. The authorities he quotes for his views FEBRUARY 17, 1888.] are not those which are recognized by modern science. Maury’s ‘Physical Geography of the Sea’ is not in accordance with the views held nowadays; neither are primers on geography good authorities. It is meaningless to say that the valley of the Missis- sippi ‘greets the south,’ as its slope is southward. The author would have us believe that this southward exposure affects its climate, while practically it has no influence whatever. Passages like this are numerous in the book. On the whole, it may be con- sidered a fair account of the subject, sufficient to meet the wants of the general reader, although the author’s teleological views lead him to a considerable number of statements which will not be con- ceded by scientists. NOTES AND NEWS. PROF. ANTON DE BARY died at Strassburg on Jan. 19, aged fifty- seven years. He had been suffering for several months of carci- noma of the face, and had undergone an operation, but without re- covering. He had held the chair of botany at the University of Strassburg since 1872, being called there from Halle. He had studied botany at Berlin under Alexander Brown, and was made professor of botany at Freiburg at an early age. His first publica- tion, ‘On the Fungi causing “‘ Rusts”’ and “Smuts,” in 1853, at- tracted much attention. While the anatomical methods of other authors had somewhat increased our knowledge of the 7/adlophy- tes, De Bary’s method of tracing their life-history opened a new era in this study. For a few years he was engaged in studying certain alge, but he soon returned to his favorite study, that of fungi. In 1864 he published the first number of the Beztrdge zur Morphologie und Phystologte der Pzlze, which was followed in 1865 by further studies on parasitic fungi. Here he traced the whole life-history of several parasitic fungi from their entrance into the host through all the various stages. He showed that the ‘rust’ of the wheat is identical with the ec¢dzwm of the barberry, and thus was the first to prove the occurrence of hetercecism. These obser- vations and their startling results led to the extensive study of cultures which has been carried on so successfully since that time. In 1866 De Bary brought out the first edition of the ‘Morphologie und Physiologie der Pilze, Flechten und Myxomyceten,’ the second edition of which, thoroughly revised and brought up to date, was published in 1884 as ‘ Comparative Morphology and Biology of the Fungi, Mycetozoa, and Bacteria.’ Both these editions were the standard books on the fungi, and gave for the first time a compre- hensive review of the subject, much of their contents being the results of De Bary’s own studies. The third number of his Bez- trdge appeared in 1870; but at the same time he published numer- ous memoirs, among which we mention that on the epidermis in the Botanische Zectung, of which he had become editor after Von Mohl’s death. Since 1866 he has been working on the ‘Compara- tive Anatomy of the Ferns and Phanerogams,’ but it was only in 1877 that the results of his researches were published, —a monu- ment of De Bary’s faculties of observation, his accuracy and ex- tensive critical reading. The influence of this book in the botanical world has been enormous. In 1885 appeared his ‘Lectures on Bacteria’ in the form of a book. While the style of this book is attractive and clear, it abounds in new facts brought to light by De Bary’s researches, among which the study of the development of the spores of Baczllus Megaterzum takes a prominent place, and gives a comprehensive and critical review of the whole literature of the subject. As a teacher he waseminently successful, and the influence of the Strassburg school upon.the development of botany and biology has been very great. Although he was not a brilliant lecturer, he knew how to excite the enthusiasm of students who worked in his laboratory; and all who worked under his direction were so impressed with the truthfulness of his nature, his justice, modesty, and kindness, that so long as his pupils live he will not be forgotten. —In his bulletin for December, 1887, Mr. J. R. Dodge, statis- tician of the Department of Agriculture, has an interesting note on the British wheat-supply for the last fifteen years. Great Britain absorbs a large portion of the wheat-supply of the world, and, if it is determined where its supply comes from, we ascertain thereby SCIENCE: 85 where a surplus of wheat is grown. Since 1874 the largest nation - al product has been that of the United States. France comes second, although she imports more than she exports, and India third. Russia occupies the fourth position. By analyzing the official statistics of Great Britain, we find where the needed wheat has been obtained, and in what proportion each source of supply has con- tributed. From 1872 to 1886 inclusive, the United States has fur- nished in grain and flour 51.1 per cent, and for eleven months of 1887 the proportion has increased to 64 per cent. Russia in fifteen years averaged 13.6 per cent of the whole, and for 1887 only 5.4 per cent. India contributed an average of 7.9 per cent, and for 1887 11.3 per cent, which is the smallest percentage in the last five years, and a marked decline in absolute quantity from the previous year. Australasia fluctuates greatly in its contribution, averaging 3.9 per cent for fifteen years, and less than 2 per cent for the six- teenth. These three competitors of the United States have to- gether furnished only 25.4 per cent, —less than half as much as this country during fifteen years, and a much smaller proportion in 1887. —Mr. William Ellis, president of the Royal Meteorological So- ciety, reviewed, in his recent annual address, the work and object of the society, which, although unable to carry out expensive original or experimental work, has a considerable influence upon the devel- opment of the science of meteorology. Mr. Ellis remarked that the society has succeeded in inciting volunteer workers throughout the country to united action, of which one recent example was the ready response to the request of the society for photographs of lightning, an excellent collection of which had been obtained, and which would shortly be exhibited; in addition to which, arrange- ments were being made for the more systematic observation of thunder-storms. Referring to the question of sympathetic relation between sun-spots and magnetism and meteorology, he thought that any complete treatment of the question in its meteorological aspect seemed to require that it should be dealt with in a much more comprehensive manner than before, for which purpose obser- vations more completely covering the surface of the globe might be necessary, if indeed not necessary also for the solution of many other meteorological questions, the present meteorological stations being distributed over the earth in such isolated clusters. The at- tention given to synoptic charts was most important, but the gen- eral meteorological characteristics of places should also still con- tinue to be studied. After remarking upon other matters, he laid before the meeting tables showing the monthly means of amount of cloud from observations made in three different series at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, extending in all from 1818 to the present time. In concluding, Mr. Ellis said that at one time the science of meteorology seemed likely to form an exception to the general rule of advance, for, more than any other, it has required the united action of many workers; but the field of inquiry of late years opened out allows us already to talk of the new or modern meteorology, — phrases typical of the advance achieved, although the knowledge gained seems only to remind us of how much has yet to be done. The Royal Meteorological Society has at present five hundred and twenty-two members. © Dr. William Marcet was elected president for the ensuing year. — A firm in Yokohama, Japan, is now manufacturing the excel- lent Auzoux models of human anatomy at low prices, as a corre- spondent learns by private letter, —In Sczence of Feb. 3, p. 57, ist column, 21st line from bottom, ‘thallophytes’ should read ‘ protophytes.’ —In Sczence of Feb. 10, p. 67, Ist column, 35th line, ‘ Herndon’ should read ‘ Heudon,’ as also throughout the paragraph. —In Sezence for Feb. 10, p.69, 2d column, 27th line from bottom, ‘$2’ should read ‘$1.’ — Leaflets Nos. 7 and 8 in the series issued by the Industrial Education Association (9 University Place, New York City) have reached us. No.7 is an able and concise paper on the scientific treatment of education, and No. 8 gives an account of progress in the New York City schools in 1887. This series is having a large circulation, and doing great good; for the phenomenally low price 386 —one cent each, or two cents postpaid —at which these leaflets are issued put them within the reach of all who care to keep post- ed as to educational progress in any part of the world. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. * * Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer's namie ts tn all cases required as proof of good faith. ' Twenty copies of the number containing his communication will be furnished Sree to any correspondent on request. The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. The Scientific Swindler Again. A YOUNG man of gentlemanly bearing, who calls himself Dr. S. M. Gutmann, and claims membership in the American Chemical ‘Society, has been lately imposing on various members of the scien- tific fraternity in New York and vicinity. He claims to be a pupil and son-in-law of Professor Hofmann of Berlin, and shows letters purporting to come from some well-known persons, who recom- mend him as an expert in the manufacture and analysis of coal-gas. He is familiar with the names of chemists ‘and physicists in this ‘country, and uses them with freedom by way of introduction to strangers. He represents himself to be in pecuniary straits, as the result of long and fruitless efforts to obtain employment since his arrival in this country. Since there are many readers of Sczence whom he will attempt to victimize, it may be well to warn them against this plausible and mendacious vagabond. W. LECONTE STEVENS. Brooklyn, Feb. ro. Psychics, or the ‘New Psychology.’ ‘THE ‘new psychology’ is a termI have noticed cropping up of late, used as the expression, the ‘new chemistry,’ or any similar phrase, might be to indicate a late and advanced state of a science, such as may properly bear out the word ‘new’ in comparison with an old or former less-advanced stage of evolution of a given sub- ject. Referring to several dictionaries at my elbow, I find the word “psychics’ defined as ‘the same as psychology,’ and marked «(Rare.]’ in one of them. In this connection, I beg leave to quote a sentence from a little treatise on psychics entitled ‘Can Matter Think?’ published in 1886, where I say (p. 29), ‘‘I have said what I think the excellent word ‘physiology’ should really mean. But I wish that the sadly abused term ‘ psychology’ could be rooted out of the dictionary, or consigned to the same limbo where ‘ theology’ has already been put by sound science and wise philosophy. ‘Psychology’ means any thing, from the vagaries of superstitious spiritualism to a sys- tem of mental philosophy or a code of metaphysics. As we have the good word ‘ physics’ for all the physical or rupic sciences, I should like to see ‘psychics’ replace psychology, with the distinct understanding,” etc. What I mean by this word is precisely what seems to be implied by the expression ‘the new psychology;’ and many may be in- clined to agree with me, that ‘ psychics’ is a short, handy name which commends itself, or, so to speak, carries its own creden- tials. A propos of words, did not Sczezce (or was it Leterary World of Boston ?) discuss lately the propriety of the adjective ‘ sciential ’ as a desirable new coinage to characterize any thing pertaining to science? If so, it may not be generally known that ‘ sciential’ is Miltonian, as in the lines, — ‘But first, low reverence done, as to the power That dwelt within, whose presence had infused Into the plant sc¢ential sap.” Paradise Lost, ix. 837. — where the meaning is ‘ science-making ’ or ‘ productive of knowl- edge,’ — exactly what ‘scientific’ literally means, though such literal sense is not implied in the ordinary usage of the word, which “sciential’ was proposed to replace. ELLIOTT COUES. Washington, D.C., Feb. 13. SCIENCE: [VoL. XI. No. 263 The Expansion of Pine Wood through Absorption of Water. DURING the summer of 1886, while seeking for a method for securing a measure of the soil moisture, I conducted an experi- ment to discover the amount and rate of the expansion in a section of white pine wood in passing from a state of complete saturation to one of complete dryness. While looking over my notes, I find the data, and, as the experiment was carefully performed, have thought that possibly the results may be worth putting on record. The results secured were as follows : — Date Weight of Sec- |Per Cent of Water, Length. |Per Centof Expan- (1886.) (Gas } on Sa Wah. (Inches.) son ee / ae Aug. 22 505.0 22.76 Il.12 5.30 a2 475-4 17.91 II.12 5-30 “e424 54.4 12.70 I1.10 5.11 ener 1s 440.5 | 9.25 11.08 4-92 “26 428.5 6.27 11,02 | 4.37 US £97 423-7 | 5.08 II.02 | 4.37 SS 328 412.7 | 2.35 10,84 | 2.46 Oe oh) 407.9 1.16 10.68 I.I4 S30 407.9 | 1.16 10.68 1.14 Sept. 1 403.2 | - 10.56 - Wiep 403.2 | - 10.56 - A section two inches in length was sawed off from the end of a sound, unchecked, white pine board, one and one-eighth inches thick, and of such a width that the section when completely dry was 10.56 inches long. The section was then immersed for thirteen days in a tank containing spring water, of which the temperature was about 60° F., to secure saturation. It was then exposed to the air of a dry room, and its weight and length noted daily until it ceased to lose weight, after which it was placed in a drying-oven and completely dried. E. S. GOFF. N.Y. Agric. Exper. Station, Geneva, Feb. 9. Queries. 28. FLOATING DROPS VERSUS FLOATING NEEDLES. — In order that drops of water may float on the general surface, there must be entire absence of any thing which might diminish surface-tension. But the text-books, even the last edition of Ganot’s ‘ Traité de Physique,’ direct us to slightly grease needles before dropping them upon the water. Stanley, on p. 49 of his book on fluids, asserts that a polished steel wire one inch long and five-hundredths of an inch in diameter just floats if thoroughly cleaned with caustic potash and wiped dry to prevent oxidation. He says, “If there was the smallest particle of grease upon the wire,a much less diameter only would be supported.” And in the same book are experiments to prove that a wire should be wetted in order to float. It may be that slightly greasing a needle does more good by smoothing over an imperfectly polished surface, than harm by diminishing surface- tension; but the phenomenon of floating drops appears to me to confirm the statement in quotation-marks above. Will some one kindly inform me where I can find a discussion of the statements of Stanley on this subject ? F. C. VAN DyCk. New Brunswick, N.J., Feb. rr. ; Answers. 20, STAR OF BETHLEHEM. — Three distinct objects have been confounded in the public mind; viz., the planet Venus, Tycho’s new star of 1572, and the apparition called the Starof Bethlehem. The brilliant object visible in daylight was Venus. Tycho’s star was visible in the north in the constellation of Cassiopeia in 1572, and has been thought by some, on the slenderest evidence, to be a variable of long period, which might re-appear about this time. A good account of it is found in Humboldt’s ‘Cosmos,’ Vol. III. Chapter IV. For an account of the theories about the Star of Bethlehem, consult the unabridged edition of Smith’s Bible Dic- tionary, Vol. III., under the heading, ‘Star of the Wise Men.’ H. A. HOWE. University of Denver, Feb. 4. x FEBRUARY 17, 1888. | SCIENCE: Calendar of eons. Missouri State University Club, Columbia, Mo. Feb. 6. —J. C. Jones, Volapiik : the New In- ternational Language. Biological Society, Washington. Feb. 11. —Vheo. Gill, Character of the Fam- ily Zlacatide ; Robt. T. Hill, The Variations of Exogyra Costata, Say; The Variations of Gryphea Pitcheri, Morton; C. V. Riley, The Insectivorous Habits of the English Sparrow ; C. Hart Merriam, A New Fox from California. Anthropological Society, Washington. Feb. 7.— John Murdoch, Siberian Origin of some Customs of the Western Eskimo; W. H. Holmes, Ornamental Fabrics from the Graves of Peru. Engineers Club, Philadelphia. Jan. 2t.—C. H. Ott, A Peculiar Case of Transmission of Vibrations and Pulsations through Structures; L. M. Haupt, Extracts from the Report of the Chief of Engineers with Reference to the Theoretical Operation of Sub- merged Jetties. Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston. Feb. 3. —F. H. Chapin, Ascents in the Front Range, Colorado. Election of Officers. — President, Augustus E. Scott; vice-president, Rest F. Curtis; recording secretary, Rosewell B. Lawrence; corresponding secretary, Frank W. Freeborn; treasurer, John E. Alden; councillors, George Dimmock, George H. Barton, John Ritchie, Jr., Frank O. Carpenter, Frederick D. Allen; trustee, Charles W. Kennard. Boston Society of Natural History. Feb, 15.—G. L. Goodale, The Life and Work of Dr. Asa Gray. Engineers’ Club, St. Louts. Feb. 1.—Carl Gayler, Highway Bridge Floors; B. F. Crow, Constructive Accounts. Publications received at Editor’s Office, Feb. 6-11, ANTHROPOLOGISCHE Gesellschaft in Wien, Mittheilungen der. Ed. by Franz Heger. Band XVII. Wien, Holder, 1887. 294 p. Binet, A., and Frere, C. “Animal Magnetism. New York, Appleton. 378 p- 2ch CHAMBERLAIN, M. A Catalogue of Canadian Birds. St. John, N.B., J. & A. McMillan. 143 p. 12°. Cxaypoce, E. W. The Lake Age in Ohio. Edinburgh, Maclachlan & Stewart. 42 p. 12°. 75 cents. Co.ectors’ Advocate. Vol. I, No.1. January, 1888. m. Cincinnati, O., Charles Tarvin. 8 p. 12°. 20 cents. Erpe, Die. Lief. 16-20. Leipzig, Hartleben. f°. Fourie, F. Annuaire de l’ Observatoire Royal | de Brux- elles, 1888. Bruxelles, Hayez. s92p. 24°. Huxriey, T.H. A Course of Elementary Instruction in Practical Biology. Revised and edited by G. B. Howes and D. H. Scott. New York, Macmillan. 512p 16°. $2.60. LinperFett, K. A. Volapiik. Milwaukee, Caspar. 130 p. 16°. 50 cents. MacAutstTer, J. Catalogue of the Pedagogical Library and the Books of Reference in the Office of the Su- perintendent of Public Schools, Philadelphia. Phila- delphia, Burk & McFetridge, pr. 184 p. 12°. McMaster, J. B. Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Let- ters. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 293 p. 16°. $1.25. Nutra.u’s Standard Dictonary of the English Language. New ed., revised by Rev. James Wood. New York, Warne & Co. 816p. 12°. $1.50. Pacxarp, A. S_ First Lessons in Zodlogy. 2d ed. New York, Holt. 290 p. 12°. $1. Paton, W. A. Down the Telands: a Voyage to the Caribbees. New York, Scribner. 301 p. 8°. Patton, J.H. Natural Resources of the United States. New York, Appleton. 523p. 12° Pragopy, A. P. Harvard Reminiscences. Ticknor. 216p. 12°. $1.25. Peapopy Museum of American Archeology and Ethnol- ogy, Twenty-first Report of the Trustees of the. Vol. Boston, IV. No. 1. Cambridge, Peabody Mus. igp. 8°. PeLttew, G. Woman and the Commonwealth: or a Questicn of Expediency. Boston, Houghton, Mif- flin, & Co. 38p. 8°. 25 cents. RICHTER, V. von. A Text-Book of Inorganic Chemistry. Tr. by Edgar F. Smith. 3d ed. Philadelphia, Blakiston. 428 p. 12° Waker, F. A. Memoir of William Barton Rogers, 1804-82. Washington, Judd & Detweiler, pr. 13 p- 8°, SCIENCE CLUBBING RATES, a o% DISCOUNT. 5 E os | 8 |.cO We will allow the above discount to] “a, | S32 | £7, any subscriber to Sczence, The Swiss $3 s2 S- Cross, or The Puzzler, who willsend me a GZ us an order for periodicals exceeding 3 ti) $10. an a) a American Agriculturist.........-..- $1.50/$ 4-30/$ 2.50 American Analyst 1.00] 4.25] 2.25 American Architect and Building News. Imperial edition Gelatine ‘‘ Regular 5 American Garden....--.....-.- American Journal of Philology. American Machinist........-- American Magazine.. American Naturalist. Andover Review.. Atlantic.... Babyhood Babyland..... Bradstreet’s. & Building (weekly)........ Carpentry and putea s: Century Magazine.. Chautauquan, The ... 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Loans on Collaterals (Market Value $9525- 363.00), C . 720,320.56 Premiums in 1887, 7 $3,202,098 .69 Loans on Personal ‘Security, ‘ 2,590.98 Interest, and from other sources in 1887, 0 1,640,533-34 $4,842 ,632.03 roansie existing Policies, the present value of 128,304. which exceeds $5,260,000.00, a ; 1,840.840.68 $35,128,304-37 | Balances Due from Agents, : : paloies DISBURSEMENTS. | ASSETS, Dec. 31,1887, at cost, . a . ° $31 ,234,520.72 Death Claims, - . ? : A $1,525,387-23 | Interest due and accrued, Dec. 31, 1887, 2 $556,294.06 Matured endowments, . 626,455.89 Premiums in course of collection, 5 S 579720.55 Dividends to Policy-holders and for Surren— Quarterly and Semi-Annual Premiums, . 169,297.40 dered Policies, i 5 F 884,527-01 | Market value of Securities over cost, . A 632,837.97 1,386,156.04 Re-Insurance, - 0 : : 1,207.80 | Gross AsSETS, 8 Rea Bes Jan. 1, 1888, =, 5 B $82,620,676.76 Agency Expenses Medical Examinations, and all other expenses, 0 203,150.65 LIABILITIES. 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C. WEBSTER, Vice-President. MORGAN G. BULKELEY, President. H. W. ST. JOHN, Actuary. J. L. ENGLISH, Secretary. GURDON W. RUSSELL, M.D., Consulting Physician. T. J. MUMFORD, Manager, 165 & 167 Broadway, New York. : SixrH YEAR, r > SINGLE CopliEs, TEN CENTS. VoL. XI. No. 264. NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 24, 1888. $3.50 PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE. Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Olass Mail-Matter. Editorial A j . 87 | Book-Reviews. The Prospects of a Zodlogical Garden in Boston. — The Man- | Harvard Reminiscences. i 3 : 93 ual Training Discussion at Washington. | The National Sin of Literary piracy g : f 94 Ryn acpeh eae | Chemistry, Inorganic and Organic °. 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D. C. HODGES, 474 Lafayette Place, New York. [VoL. XI. No. 264 What Scott’s Emulsion Has Done! Over 25 Pounds Gainin Ten Weeks. Experience of a Prominent Citizen, THE CALIFORNIA SOCIETY FOR THE SUPPRESSION OF VICE. San Francisco, July 7th, 1886. I took a severe cold upon my ehest and lungs and did not give it proper attention; it developed into bronchitis, and in the fall of the same year I was threatened with consumption. Physicians or- dered me to a more congeni- aleclimate, and I came to San Franeiseo. Soon after my arrival I commenced taking Seott’s Emulsion of Cod Liver Oil with Hypophosphites reg- ularly three times a day. In ten weeks my avoirdupois went from 155 to 180 pounds and over; the cough mean- time ceased. C. R. BENNETT. SOLD BY ALL DRUCCISTS. SCIENCE. AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY JOURNAL. THE SCIENCE COMPANY, OWNERS AND PUBLISHERS. GFFICERS AND Drrecrors.—D. C. Girman, of Baltimore, Presfdent; Simon Newcoms, of Washington, Vice-President; GARDINER G. 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Ono eo .o 0-0-0 10 co Lower half of front page . 12 00 rcolumn . 7 00 For small advertisements the rate will be 6 cents per agate line, The following discounts are allowed on yearly con- tracts ; — T2oo0O}lineS: | (5) Asus Metis neni RIES ER oaE SmI O% PHONICS eGo 4 ol 6 6g oo Oo) BGs Cope Gowda. oso Sl bla) oa SEES Advertisements must be acceptable in every respects Copy received until Wednesday, 10 A.M. SCIENCE ts sent free to those who advertise in tt, as long as advertisement continues. ere ICE FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1888. WE CALLED ATTENTION a few weeks ago to the beginnings of a zodlogical garden at Washington. It now appears that plans for a similar undertaking have been in progress for some time in Bos- ton, and are now made public in a correspondence between the park commissioners of that city and the Society of Natural History. Although only preliminary steps have yet been taken, the outcome appears to be that the park commissioners have agreed to place in reserve, and lease the society on a nominal rental for a long term of years, several pieces of land under their control, to be developed, under the auspices of the society, as natural-history gardens and aquaria, if the friends of the society will raise a fund of two hundred thousand dollars as a foundation for the enterprise. The society proposes to interest the general public in the matter by ‘creating a new body of members, to be called ‘ garden members,’ paying a certain annual sum for the support of the enterprise, and in return presumably receiving certain entrance privileges. In their reply to the proposal made by the Natural History Society, the park commissioners call attention to the peculiar situation of Boston, in that its territory is greatly divided by bodies of water and marsh, and its dry land by rocky ridges, causing the city to extend itself in a veryirregular manner. This prevents the possibility of finding any one piece of land large enough for the proposed natural-history park, and leads the commissioners to suggest to the society the advisability of occupying several distinct pieces of land; so that the plan as developed includes a diversified but unwatered portion of Franklin Park, next the future pleasuring-ground of Boston, a sec- tion of the park below Jamaica Pond, and a salt-water basin, perhaps a quarter of a mile long, at City Point, South Boston. Such a division has never before, we believe, been attempted in a zoological garden, but, though obviously requiring a larger staff to operate it, has some advantages which should not be overlooked. It is thus possible to obtain for aquatic animals places specially suited to them, and to select ground of avery varied character for other parts of the garden without feeling dependent upon a great water- supply; while the establishment of the large marine aquaria at the very edge of the harbor has obvious advantages. Moreover, it brings all the citizens into near proximity to some part of the ground occupied. Another distinct feature in the plan is a most commendable one, though its advantages are not so apparent on financial as on educational grounds. The committee points out that the society has long developed its museum with the distinct purpose of making it auxiliary to the general scheme of education in the State, and within a recent time has given special attention to exhibiting the animals, plants, and minerals of New England, be- lieving that its position as the leading natural-history society of this group of States imposes such a duty upon it. This same idea it would carry out in the proposed garden by making it in an especial way a reproduction of the true indigenous fauna of New England. For it is to be borne in mind, say the memorialists, “that with the increase of population, and the concomitant decrease of the indige- nous wild animals; above all, with the modern excessive growth of city life, — the percentage of city children (and hence of all) who may ever hope to see, and still less to observe at their leisure, the living objects of their native State or country, is rapidly growing less. At the same time the importance of such observation and study, instead of decreasing in like proportion, is greatly enhanced. To the country boy it is of comparatively little moment whether he observes this bird or plant, or that, since he has usually definite ideas of all, drawn from frequent observation of many. But to the city lad it is of the utmost consequence that he shall be able to cor- rect his less definite ideas — formed for the most part by hearsay, by ‘books, or by pictures—by observation of the object itself.” The enterprise now plainly depends on the public spirit of the citizens of Boston. It is the natural and proper outcome of the admirable park system of that city. The Natural History Society has had the plan in view for twenty years, and believes the time is now ripe for developing it. Surely no such scheme has ever been proposed in this country under more favorable circumstances, or with the promise of so powerful and substantial support. That the park commissioners perceive this, is evident from the readiness of their response to the application of the society’s committee, and we shall look with confidence to a generous response from a city that has already done so much for science and education. THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION discussed by the Department of Superintendence of the National Educational Association at its meeting at Washington last week was, ‘How and to what extent can manual training be ingrafted in the public-school system?’ It occupied the entire morning of the first day’s session; and after the reading, by Mr. Charles H. Ham of Chicago, of a very thought- ful and eloquent paper, the discussion was taken up by a number of gentlemen, some of them the most prominent and influential educators of the country. Of all who participated in the discussion, only one, Mr. Marble of Worcester, —a gentleman whose idiosyn- crasies on this subject we have lately criticised (Sczence, No. 257), — opposed manual training, he even going entirely beyond the limits of the question at issue in order to ventilate his views. The reports of the meeting which reach us go to prove that our previous judg- ment, that Mr. Marble knows nothing about manual training or the argument for it, was correct. We regret to understand, how- ever, that at Washington he surpassed his previous efforts, and considerably exceeded the bounds of courtesy in his treatment of those who favor manual training. The consciousness that one stands alone in the wrong of so great a question as this, must be irritating, but it can hardly be offered as an excuse for the con- duct in question. Argument by invective is becoming far too com- mon in this country, and it is our duty to protest most emphati- cally against its introduction into educational discussions. The advance of a great educational movement is not to be checked by abusing either it or those who regard it with favor, and it was this abuse, without a line of argument, which made up Mr. Marble’s fifty-minute harangue. President Butler, Dr. Belfield, and Mr. Newell very easily and briefly showed how entirely aside from the question it all was. The result of the discussion was the appoint- ment of a committee of seven to draw up a course of study in man- ual training, and to report at the next meeting. THE MISSISSIPPI PROBLEM. THE improvement of the Mississippi River, on a large scale and systematic plan, enjoyed, from its inception to the last session of the Forty-eighth Congress, a most enthusiastic support. From the outset, the theories proposed as the basis of the work undertaken have been criticised and contested, but for a considerable time no opposition was directed to the constructions actually undertaken. Happily all who had addressed themselves to the problem had been, so far as concerns the works in the bed of the river, substan- tially in accord as to the projects for the immediate application of the appropriations, while differing somewhat as to the reasons for 88 the work recommended, and still more as to the results to be ex- pected of them. In such a state of affairs, the work could properly be continued ; since the concurrent opinion of all as to the work to be done would probably be right, though of the discordant reasons and diverse expectations of individuals, some, of course, must be wrong. At the beginning of the session above referred to, a strong and determined opposition developed to one of the principal features of the work proposed. It was stated that the revetment of caving banks was.unnecessary and wasteful, since the object of that work, the cessation of caving, would result from the contraction-works, or those designed to concentrate the water over the shoals. Some of the most active champions of the improvement and of the commission by which it was being carried on, announced the discovery that this commission had effected an insidious and dangerous change in its original plan, by virtue of which the ob- jectionable feature of bank-revetment had been introduced or made more prominent. It is without the present line of argument to contest this statement, several refutations of which have appeared in print. The issue is now squarely made between revetment and anti-revetment theories, and must be met on its merits. It makes no difference, in the decision of the question, whether the Missis- sippi River Commission have changed front on it or not; except, perhaps, that if they have done so, it has been in the light of four years’ experience, which in itself would be a strong argument in favor of their later views. The two theories are so antagonistic that compromise is scarcely possible. The revetment or protection theory makes prevention of caving by means of this class of work one of the prime causes of the improved condition of the river : the anti-revetment theory pre- dicts the cessation of caving as a result of the contraction-works. The one would stop the deterioration of the channel, and cut off one of the principal causes of impaired navigation, preliminary to or concurrent with the effort to improve the channel : the other would attempt to remove the effect, while leaving the cause in full opera- tion. The hypothesis on which the anti-revetment theory is based is very simple. It is assumed that the ability of flowing water to carry suspended sediment is directly proportional to its velocity; that at any given velocity it can carry a certain normal quantity, refuses more, and is not content with less ; that if undercharged it takes up the deficit from the adjacent bed, producing scour and caving; if overcharged it drops the surplus on the spot, causing a fill. A corollary of this is, that if the channel can be so regulated that the velocity will be uniform throughout its whole extent, and always bear the proper ratio to the supply of sediment, there will be no scour or fill in the bed or on the banks of the stream; the sediment supplied by tributaries will be carried without loss or gain to the sea; the deterioration of the channel will cease; the bars, having been removed, cannot re-form; and the problem is solved. As evidenced by their practice, engineers are overwhelmingly in favor of ideas the reverse of these. Many civil engineers have ad- dressed themselves to the problem in the interest of individuals or corporations. No case is known where any of them have proposed any remedy for a caving bank, except a direct protection of some kind. When called upon to induce a scour along a bank, as in some cases of important landings, they have, strangely enough, successfully employed for that purpose the very means now pro- posed to prevent the same thing. Such proponderance of professional opinion would be accepted in any question of law or medicine. In matters of engineering, however, the public demand not only that we shall be agreed, but that they shall be convinced. It is therefore necessary to further argue the question, and for the same reason the argument must be addressed, not to the profession alone, but to the public as well. It is not proposed to test the hypothesis by any of the well-as- certained facts of the river’s regimen. Thus no argument will be founded on the facts that by hypothesis the proportion of sediment should increase from the bottom to the surface, as does the velocity, whereas the increase is from surface to bottom; that the sediment should be greatest at the thread of swiftest water, and diminish toward either bank, as does the velocity, while, on the con- trary, it is sensibly equal all the way across, and as often in excess SCIENCE: [ Vor. ny No. 267 on the slow as on the swift side; that a greater proportion of sedi- ment should always be carried at a higher than at a lower stage, the reverse having been again and again observed; or that the rate of caving should be least when that proportion is greatest, which rarely or never happens. Nor will any attempt be made to weaken the force of this doctrine by pointing out any of the well-established causes of caving, such as outflow of ground-water, eddies, or whirls, and wash of wind or steamboat waves, which, being inde- pendent of the velocity, will survive any regulation of it which may be effected. Inquiry will be made as to the applicability of this theory to the problem in consideration, or, in other words, whether the conditions under which the hypothesis is claimed to be effective can be pro- duced in the Mississippi River. Should it be found that these con- ditions can be produced, the truth or falsity of the hypothesis could be quickly decided by trial. On the other hand, should it appear that the conditions precedent cannot be realized, the truth or falsity of the theory is immaterial. The actual velocities or rates of current are, in the river’s present state, any thing but uniform. Their distribution may be illustrated by the motion of the wheels of a cart driven over a crooked road. On a straight stretch, the wheels revolve with equal velocity. If a turn to the left be made, the right wheel is accelerated and the left retarded, and the reverse in case of a turn to the other side. If the curve be sufficiently short, the inside wheel stops; while, if still more abrupt, it must turn backward. Add to this that the top of each wheel moves faster than the bottom, and the motion of the water of the Mississippi and like streams is completely illustrated. The channel of the Mississippi River is just such a road, and the relative velocity of its current at any point of its course may be readily predicated from the above analogy. The depth is always roughly proportional to the velocity. The highest velocity and greatest depths coincide on the concave sides of the bends, corre- sponding to the outside wheel on acurve, and it is here that the caving banks are found. On the convex side, deposits of sediment from the retarded currents are constantly being made, the accre- tions nearly, though not quite, keeping pace with the recession of the caving line opposite. A word now as to the location and operation of the contraction- works, which are the means to be employed to bring about the re- quired conditions. At every flood the river builds up its principal shoals, so that the bottom is as high as the surface of the water at the lowest stage. Low waters, such as now occur, would be im- possible but for the fact that the river, in falling, cuts a channel for itself through these barriers. Were these natural channels suitable and sufficient for navigation, river improvement would be without its strongest claim to public support. They are unsuitable by reason of the uncertainty when and where they will form, and their frequent tortuousness. When they are deficient, it is usually by reason of a division of effort whereby two or more small channels are formed by an expenditure of the work which would suffice for a single one of sufficient size. Above and on these shoals the contraction-works are to be placed. Their effect will be to localize and accelerate the natural channel cutting, but not to increase the amount of energy so ex- pended. The amount of material scoured from the shoal nearly or quite equals each year the amount deposited on it. Otherwise the river would shut itself up. If so little as one per cent of the ma- terial deposited in a year on any shoal remained there permanently, the shoal would be raised perceptibly each year, and, within the re- corded history of the river, should have become a dam as high as the banks, to turn the river out over the country. The regulated river, flowing through the contraction-works, can remove from the shoal each year but a small excess of material over what is deposited on it, and this for a limited period only: ultimately it can not, and by our hypothesis must not, carry away any excess. It appears from the foregoing that the aggregate amount of ma- terial scoured from any shoal will not be sensibly changed by the contraction-works. The amount passing through in suspension can- not be affected at all: hence the total amount in suspension in the bend below will not differ. That the volume of water discharged will not be affected, it is scarcely necessary to argue. These two quantities unchanged, their quotient, which is the degree of satura- FEBRUARY 24, 1888. ] tion, cannot be modified by the contraction-works : for their effect on the distribution of velocities in the bend below, it is only neces- sary to point to the portion of the river below Baton Rouge. Here the conditions prescribed for a regularized river obtain in greater perfection than can possibly be realized on the river above. Yet in this ideal stream the distribution of velocities follows the cart-wheel analogy as closely as anywhere else. To sum up, the effect of the contraction-works on a shoal, upon the conditions existing in the bend below, is simply nothing, — nothing as to the distribution of velocities, and nothing as to the amount of sediment carried. In the face of this conclusion, the changes required by our hypoth- esis, before it agrees to stop the caving, are quite discouraging. It asks nothing less than the complete reversal of present condi- tions. It requires that the restraint of a fundamental hydraulic law be removed, so that the water may move at the same velocity at bottom and surface. It demands that the rapid currents along the ‘caving banks be checked, and the sluggish ones on the other side quickened ; that sediment shall be deposited in places whence it is now removed, and removed from those where it is now deposited. These revolutions of the river’s regimen, as results of works at a distant point, and which have, as has been shown, no effect upon the conditions to be changed, are severally and equally impossible. The greatest actual velocity will be found, as now, in front of the caving bank. If the lesser velocity at the contraction-works be sufficient to produce scour there, the greater velocity at the point of caving must also scour and the caving continue. If the velocity along the caving bank correspond to saturation, so as to prevent ‘caving, the lesser velocity on the shoal must allew deposits, and navigation will be injured. The disparity in velocities is utilized by steamboats, the down boats being assisted by the rapid currents in the bends, while the up boats take advantage of the slack water on the other side. Uni- form motion all the way across would retard the former preceptibly, and the latter fifty per cent. It is now difficult to get up stream enough pieces to accommodate the down-stream traffic. With uni- form motion, it would be impossible. Navigation will suffer by the most cautious bestowal of such benefits. A more general view leads to the same result as the local one. Suppose the channel to have been regularized from Cairo to Baton Rouge as completely as it now is below the latter point. In this conduit, the water supplied by its tributaries is to flow under the conditions that it shall always have the normal charge of sediment due to the velocity, and that it shall neither erode the channel nor make any deposits therein. No sediment being derived from action on the bed, the supply must come entirely from the tributaries. The tributaries differ widely in their turbidity. The Missouri is the largest silt contributor, furnishing much more than all the others together. After it, but still classed as muddy, come the small streams on the east side above Memphis, the Arkansas and the Red. The Ohio, St. Francis, White, and Yazoo are comparatively clear. If our regularized channel be adapted in size to carry Ohio water without scour or fill, deposits must result when the Missouri predominates. If the channel be such that Missouri water can be carried without loss or gain of sediment, scour and caving must be expected when the supply is mainly from the Ohio. If a mean be taken, the scour and fill will alternately occur, which is simply a relapse into the present difficulties. No natural adjustment by mixture is possible, since the streams named have drainage areas lying in widely different latitudes, and it is rarely that their rises or floods are co-incident. j Suppose, again, that the corrected channel just below Cairo is filled to a certain level with just the right mixture of Ohio and Mis- souri water, having the normal charge of sediment due to its velocity, and carrying it without loss or gain. A slight rise comes -out of the Ohio. Bringing an insufficient supply of sediment, it re- ‘duces the degree of saturation in the trunk stream. In order that scour and caving may not begin, this addition of water must be accompanied by a decrease of velocity and a rise of surface. If the rise, on the other hand, comes from the Missouri, the case is reversed, and, in order to prevent deposits and shoals, the velocity must be increased without a corresponding rise in surface. To realize either set of conditions requires an inverse ratio between SCIENCE 89 velocity and slope, which is a blow at the fundamental law of the universe, that of gravitation, These contradictory requirements are repeated all along the river’s course. The Forked Deer, Obion, and Wolf Rivers must produce an effect on the main stream directly the reverse of the St. Francis; the Arkansas, of the White; and the Yazoo, of the Red. The velocity of the river must conform to the supply of sediment, or the hypothesis will be violated. The supply of sediment is fortuitous: hence chance must take the place of hydraulic laws in controlling the flow of the water. There never has been a day in the known history of the river when caving was not in progress. The amount of sediment requi- site to produce normal saturation and prevent caving must therefore be greater than the river has ever before carried. The demand is, that the river be made muddier, and kept so. How as to supply ? Of the present contributions, a considerable part is to be cut off by the cessation of caving and scour, which are promised as results of the improvement. The tributaries remain; but of these, the only one worth considering, the Missouri, is already under improvement. The result of that improvement, if successful, will be a fixation of its bed, and a large reduction of its output of sedi- ment. The maintenance of even the present supply of sediment in the trunk stream involves the degradation of the tributary. If the Mississippi is to be improved on such principles, the regulation of the Missouri must be stopped at once. We see, that, while the demand for sediment is increased, the supply is largely reduced. A scheme of improvement, the vital feature of which is the production and maintenance of increased muddiness, promises as its results changes which must largely re- duce the muddiness. Surely this is necromancy on a large scale. The saturation hypothesis, whether true or false, and following it the anti-revetment theory and plan of improvement based thereon, must be entirely rejected so far as the Mississippi River is con- cerned ; because the conditions under which it is claimed to act cannot be produced or maintained ; because uniformity of velocity in any cross-section, or from one section to another, is impossible, either in natural or regulated channel ; because the volume of water which controls the velocity, and the supply of sediment, the two factors which determine the saturation, are now practically inde- pendent, and in a regulated channel become absolutely so, thus making the combination of the two to produce normal saturation a matter of chance and not of law; finally and principally, because the hypothesis contradicts and defeats itself in that it requires an increased supply of sediment to produce results which, if realized, must make this supply a constantly decreasing quantity. If the caving of banks is to be stopped, it must be done by means outside of the contraction-works, since the latter cannot produce the slightest diminution of caving. That they will greatly increase it, may be strongly argued both from theory and experience; but such is beyond the present purpose. SMITH S. LEACH. MENTAL SCIENCE. A Second Laura Bridgman. THE recently issued report of the Perkins Institution for the Blind, where Laura Bridgman has spent fifty years of her life, adds another most interesting and promising record to the accounts of persons afflicted with this double infirmity. The number of per- sons deprived of both sight and hearing is larger than is commonly supposed, and gives no sanction to the common belief that the loss of one sense insures an unusually strong development of the others. From a psychological point of view, the value of such cases depends, first and chiefly, on the age at which the senses were lost, those cases being the most suggestive and valuable in which the loss is earliest; secondly, upon the degree of blindness and deafness, as well as the rapidity with which these senses lose their function, the most instructive inferences being deducible from cases in which the loss is total; and, thirdly, from the completeness and accuracy of the record of the person’s capabilities and achievements at the vari- ous periods of life, and especially during early childhood. In all these respects the case of Laura Bridgman is a most phenomenal one. Her life-history is to the psychologist most fruitful of hints and suggestions, throwing clear light upon questions otherwise ceye) difficult of approach. It is an experiment of nature, and as right- fully gets the eager eyes of the psychological student turned towards it, as the transit of Venus attracts the gaze of every as- tronomer’s telescope. The majority of cases of deafness combined with blindness, however, do not belong to this category. In many instances enough remains of hearing or sight, or both, to allow these to enter as a factor in the mental development of the individ- ual, and to that extent to vitiate the exclusive inference as to the rvéles that these senses play in the psychic life. Often, too, though sight and hearing are practically totally lost, the loss occurred at a period of life when the mind has begun to profit by the experience which these senses collect, and can for many years feed upon the material thus brought together. This independence of the intel- lectual centres from their food-supply of sensations after a certain age — the fifth to the seventh year for sight — has been proved by actual observation. The report above referred to mentions that there are between thirty and thirty-five blind deaf-mutes in Sweden, where a benevolent lady has organized a school for such defections, and not less than forty such in this country. Eight of these are mentioned by name; but in only two of these cases is the age men- tioned at which the loss of the senses occurred, — the one at eleven years, the other at seven, but with enough sight remaining to distinguish color, —and in both these, as well as in a third case, hearing was not lost until the power of speech had been perma- nently acquired. But of all these cases, hardly excepting that of Laura Bridgman, that of Helen Keller deserves the most minute and careful study. A véswmé of the facts concerning her condition, collected by Mr. Anagnos, the director of the Perkins Institute, cannot fail to be of interest. Helen is the daughter of cultured and well-to-do parents, and was born in Alabama on June 27, 1880. When about ninteen months old, she was attacked violently with congestion of the stomach; and to the effects of this disease are referred her total loss of sight and hearing. Previously she is said to have been of perfect health, and unusually bright and active. She had learned to walk, and was fast learning to talk. The loss of her senses thus took place about seven months earlier than in the case of Laura Bridgman, though Helen seems to have been as much if not more developed at nineteen months than was the latter at twenty-six months. In both cases a slow recovery was made, and a painful inflammation of the eyes set in. It is recorded of Helen that she ‘soon ceased to talk, because she had ceased to hear any sound.” As her strength returned, she gave ample evidence of the sound- ness of her mental faculties. She learned to distinguish the differ- ent members of her family and her friends by feeling their features, and took an especial interest in the affairs of the household. The little hands were constantly busy in feeling objects and detecting the movements of those about her. She began to imitate these motions, and thus learned to express her wants and meaning by signs, to a remarkable degree. Just before completing her seventh year, a skilful teacher from the Perkins Institute — Miss Sullivan — was engaged for her. Atthis age Helen is described as a “bright, active, well-grown girl,” “quick and graceful in her movements, having fortunately not acquired any of those nervous habits so common among the blind. She has a merry laugh, and is fond of romping with otherchildren. Indeed, she is never sad, but has the gayety which belongs to her age and temperament. When alone she is restless, and always flits from place to place as if searching for some thing or some body.” Her sense of touch is developed to an unusual degree, and enables her to recognize her associates upon the slightest contact. Her sense of smell is very acute, enabling her to separate her own clothes from those of others; and her sense of taste is equally sound. In this respect she has an advantage over Laura Bridgman, in whom both these senses were reduced almost to extinction. She speedily learned to be neat and orderly about her person, and correct in her deportment. The first lesson is an interesting epoch. A doll had been sent Helen from Boston; and when she had made a satisfactory exploration of it, and was sitting quietly holding it, Miss Sullivan took Helen’s hand and passed it over the doll; she then made the letters d—o-l-] in the finger-alphabet while Helen held her hand. ‘I began to make the letters a second time. She immediately dropped the doll, and followed the motions of my fingers with one hand, while she SCIENCE. [Vot. XI. No 264 repeated the letters with the other. She next tried to spell the word without assistance, though rather awkwardly. Shedid not give the double Z, and so I spelled the word once more, laying stress on the repeated letter. She then spelled ‘doll’ correctly. This process was repeated with other words, and Helen soon learned six words, — ‘doll,’ ‘hat,’ ‘mug,’ ‘pin,’ ‘cup,’ ‘ball... When given one of these objects, she would spell its name, but it was more than a week before she understood that all things were thus identified.” In a surprisingly short time Helen completely mastered the notion that objects had names, and that the finger-alphabet opened up to her a rich avenue of knowledge. Every thing had to be named, and she seemed to remember difficult combinations of letters, such as ‘heliotrope’ and ‘chrysanthemum,’ quite as readily and securely as shorter words. In less than two months she learned three hundred words, and in about four months she had acquired six hundred and twenty-five words, —a truly remarkable achieve- ment. She still used her gesture-signs ; but, as her knowledge of words increased, the former fell into disuse. Next verbs were taught her, beginning with such as Helen herself could act, as ‘ sit,’ ‘stand,’ ‘shut,’ ‘open,’ etc. Prepositions were similarly mastered. Helen was placed zz the wardrobe, and the sentence spelled out to: her. ‘Box is 07 table,’ ‘Mildred is zz crib,’ are sentences which she constructed after little more than a month’s instruction. Ad- jectives were skilfully introduced by an object-lesson upon a large, soft worsted ball and a bullet. Helen felt the difference in size at once. ‘“ Taking the bullet, she made her habitual sign for * small ;’ that is, by pinching a little bit of the skin of one hand. Then she took the other ball, and made her sign for ‘large’ by spreading both hands over it. I substituted the adjectives ‘large’ and ‘small’ for these signs. Then her attention was called to the hardness of the one ball, and the softness of the other; and so she learned ‘soft’ and ‘hard.’ A few minutes afterwards she felt of her little sister’s head, and said to her mother, ‘ Mildred’s head is small and hard.’” Even so arbitrary elements of language as the auxiliary ‘ will’ and the conjunction ‘and’ were learned before two months of instruction had passed, and on May 1 she formed the sentence, “‘ Give Helen key, and Helen will open door.” From this the step to reading the raised type of the blind was an easy one. “Incredible as it may seein, she learned all the letters, both capital and small, in one day. Next I turned to the first page of the ‘ Primer,’ and made her touch the word ‘cat,’ spelling it on my fingers at the same time. Instantly she caught the idea, and asked me to find ‘dog,’ and many other words. Indeed, she was. much displeased because I could not find her name in the book.” She soon added writing to her accomplishments, and carefully formed the letters upon the grooved boards used by the blind. On the 12th of July she wrote her first letter, beginning thus: ‘“ Helen will write mother letter papa did give helen medicine mildred will sit in swing mildred will kiss helen teacher did give helen peach,’ etc. This well justifies the statement that she acquired more in four months than did Laura Bridgman in two years. Letter- writing is quite a passion with her, and, as she is also able to write by the Braille system, she has the pleasure of being able to read what she has written. Her progressin arithmetic is equally remark- able, going through such exercises as “fifteen threes make forty- five,” etc. As examples of her powers of inference, the following will do service: she asked her teacher, “ What is Helen made of ?” and was answered, “Flesh and blood and bone.” When asked what her dog was made of, she answered, after a moment’s pause, “Flesh and bone and blood.” When asked the same question about her doll, she was puzzled, but at last answered slowly, “ Straw.” That some of her inferences are not equally happy, the following illustrates : ‘‘on being told that she was white, and that one of the servants was black, she concluded that all who occupied a similar menial position were of the same hue; and whenever I asked her the color of a servant, she would say, ‘ Black.’ When asked the color of some one whose occupation she did not know, she seemed bewildered, and finally said, ‘ Blue.’”” Her memory is remarkably retentive, and her powers of imitation unusually developed. One of her favorite occupations is to dress herself up, —a performance which she accomplishes not always with success according to our ideas. Her progress continues, and each letter is a marked im- provement upon its predecessors. A letter to Mr. Anagnos contains. FEBRUARY 24, 1888.] the following sentences: ‘‘ My doll nancy is sleeping. She is sick. mildred is well uncle frank has gone hunting deer. , we will have venison for breakfast when he comes home. I did ride in wheel- barrow and teacher did push it,” and so on. Enough has been said to indicate the remarkable powers of this unfortunate child, and to give basis for the belief, that if her training is continued in a wise direction, and with a proper appreciation of the value of de- tailed and accurate investigation, the world will be able to read in the life of Helen Keller a most momentous psychological lesson. EXPLORATION AND TRAVEL. Tibet and Nepaul. A SUPPLEMENT to the ‘Indian Survey Report for 1885-86’ has just been issued. It contains the description of a native surveyor, M—H, through eastern Nepaul and southern Tibet, of which the London 7z7es gives the following extract : — “ The explorer crossed the Nepaul boundary near Dagmarathana, in Bhagalpur, and, after making customary presents, obtained a passport authorizing his further progress, which lay northward over the Mahabharat range, one of the spurs of the great Himalayan Mountains. At various points along the route his passport was examined, his goods searched, and atax exacted from him, and in some cases he had, in addition, to propitiate the local authorities with presents. On July 24, 1885, the explorer passed a great tem- ple, called Halsia Mahadeo, situated on a mountain-spur, and de- puted his travelling-companion to visit and examine the temple, which is held in veneration in the neighborhood, and has been en- dowed with a large free grant of land. At Asaliakhark, a fort held by four hundred Nepaulese soldiers under a captain, whose duty it is to examine all passes brought by travellers from the south, and, after full inquiry, to grant fresh ones to those proceeding farther north, the explorer was subjected to much interrogation, as his pass was only available for Nepaul. As it was known that he intended penetrating northwards into Tibet, he was closely searched, interrogated, and directed to return by the way he came, the soldiers being ordered to keep him under surveillance for such time as he remained there. After being detained for six days, the explorer was able, by making suitable presents, to obtain permission to pro- ceed, having persuaded the official that he and his party were in- habitants of Jumla, and that they were anxious to return thither by Dingri, Jonkhajong, and Kagbeni, as being the most expeditious route. Their further march lay pretty close to the Dudhkosi River, and at Jubang Tibetan inhabitants were met for the first time. Khumbujong, a little west of Mount Everest, is the residence of the governor of the Khumbu district. The official is a Tibetan, and has held the post for the last thirty years: he receives no pay from the Nepaul Government, but is allowed fifteen per cent of the net revenue of the district, and pays an annual official visit to Khatmandu. Fora time the governor absolutely refused the party permission to proceed northwards by a route which he alleged had never till then been traversed by any Hindostanee or Goorkha. The explorer had therefore to make a lengthened stay at this place, during which he endeavored to ingratiate himself with the inhabit- ants by treating their sick. One of the commonest diseases in the locality was goitre, and, as he succeeded in curing the governor’s daughter-in-law of this, he was naturally taken into favor, and secured the sympathies of her husband, Sunnam Durje. This last- named individual was about starting on a trading expedition to the north, and by the exercise of sufficient tact was prevailed upon to take the explorer’s party in his train. The man eventually gained his father’s tacit consent to the arrangement, and, after a six-weeks’ enforced inactivity, the explorer again started on his way. On Sept. 23, near Pangji, the famous deity Takdeo (‘horse-god’), a black rock, in shape like a huge horse, was passed. Out of deference to Takdeo, which is considered very-sacred by the Tibetans, no ponies are allowed on the route over the pass. The Pangula Pass over the Himalayas, he says, is decidedly the highest and most formidable ever crossed by him: he estimates the height at over twenty thou- sand feet, but, owing to an unfortunate accident to his boiling- point thermometer, he was unable to estimate it more accurately. The ridge forms the boundary between Tibet and Nepaul. At Keprak, the first frontier village, the Tibetan official refused the SCIENCE: gI party permission to go on, saying any such concession would cost him his life ; but with the influence of their friend, Sunnam Durje, and by the exercise of a little diplomacy, a guide was eventually obtained to Dingri, across the great grassy plain called the Dingri Maidan. “ The town of Dingri, which has an elevation of 13,860 feet, con- sists of about two hundred and fifty houses, and the inhabitants are chiefly Tibetans, though there are five houses belonging to Goor- khas, and three or four to Chinamen, who have established them- selves at this place for trading purposes. The houses are all stone- built, a tenacious whitish clay being used in place of mortar, and with flat roofs. The country round is well cultivated, but barley and peas are the only produce. The inhabitants all appear well-to- do. On the hill which rises immediately from the north of the town to a height of about three hundred feet, stands the stone-built fort occupied by the Daibung and forty Chinese officers, who are in command of about five hundred Tibetan soldiers. The Daibung is relieved once in three years, and during his tenure of office is al- lowed to trade within the limits of his province. There are said to be only three Daibungs, in all, under the Lhasa Government: of these, one resides in Lhasa, another in the Nam-Cho district, and the third at Dingri. The authority of the last mentioned extends from Shakia to the westernmost limits of Tibet, and he exercises both military and civil jurisdiction, short of capital punishment, within his territory. The trade in which the Daibung engages, so far as tea and salt are concerned, cannot be characterized as free. Each house in his jurisdiction is compelled to take one brick yearly from the Daibung at a high rate, and he realizes a large annual revenue from it. In addition to these two articles, he deals in blankets on the same footing as private traders. No gold is to be seen at Dingri: it is much sought after, and many inquiries were made of the explorer as to whether he had any gold, pearls, or coral to dispose of. “The soldiers occupying the Dingri fort are armed with a sword, matchlock, and bow and arrows. The sword is the usual short, straight weapon, in wooden scabbard, met with all over Tibet ; the matchlocks are sent from Lhasa; and the bows are made of bam- boo which is brought from Nepaul. The soldiers manufacture their own powder on the spot. Lead is imported from Nepaul and Darjeeling ; but, as bullet-moulds are unknown, they pour out the molten lead into a long, hollow scoop in the ground, and then clip it into convenient-sized pieces, which are hammered to suit the bores of the guns. The soldiers receive a small yearly pay (about £2 to £2 10s.), and are allowed to engage in agriculture, trade, etc. They are drilled by their Chinese officers every week or so, some- times on foot, at other times mounted on ponies, which they main- tain for themselves, and there are periodic inspections by the Daibung. At these inspections the soldiers always appear mounted, in uniform, and have to go through target-practice. For the latter a disk of leather, one foot in diameter, painted white, is suspended to a rope stretched across two poles. Each soldier in turn then rides full gallop across the field at about fifteen feet from the target, and fires as he goes past. Should he hit the mark, the officer in attendance with the Daibung scores a point. When all the soldiers have gone past in one direction, they return, firing in the same way as they go past the target, to their original position. They next go through the same course, using their bows and arrows instead of matchlocks. The Daibung then examines the notes of each officer, and for every point scored presents him with a khatag or kerchief. The explorer was not much impressed with the marksmanship he saw. “As Dingri is situated on the high road from Lhasa westwards, it is the constant resort of traders, for whose convenience a serai capable of accommodating two hundred men has been built. The bulk of the goods is carried on mules, chiefly because they travel so much faster than either yaks or asses. “Throughout the country from Bhagalpur to Dingri the chief ar- ticles carried northwards are tobacco-leaf, cotton-cloth, broad-cloth, iron, brass, and copper vessels, corals, and rupees, which are used for making jewelry; and for these the men of Khumbu go annually in parties to India, some even as far as Calcutta. taking with them musk-pods, yak-tails, antelope-horns, blankets, and stuffed munal and argus pheasants. From Dingri are exported into Nepaul 92 SCIENCE. Tibetan blankets, musk-pods, goats, ponies, clarified butter, and yak-tails. The chief grain grown is maize or Indian-corn. The domestic animals comprise buffaloes, yaks, zobus (cross-breed between yak and cow), goats, and sheep of the long-horned species, largely used in Tibet for transport purposes. The yak and female zobu afford a plentiful supply of milk. Among the wild fauna are musk deer and Tibetan antelopes, while flocks of wild pigeons and ravens and pheasants are common. “The Daibung was away when the explorer reached Dingri, and did not return till Oct. 21. Great trouble was experienced in get- ting him to accord permission for the party to proceed westwards. The Daibung declared that this route was absolutely closed to all but officials; but in consideration of the explorer’s companion, who was a man of influence in these parts, god in consideration of his promise to be answerable for their good behavior, the required per- mission was granted, but with a proviso that from village to village a guide should escort the party and send back regular reports of the progress made. “The general direction of the explorer’s route then trended to the west, past the Palgucho Lake, about nine miles by four in ex- tent, the waters of which are clear and sweet to the taste, though it has no outlet. The Tibetan fort of Jonkhajong, the farthest point to the north-west reached, is a substantial stronghold, about four hundred paces square, protected by a mud and stone wall. Two officials, called Jongpons (Tib. = ‘governor of a district’) re- side here, and exercise civil and judicial authority short of capital pun- ishment. The surrounding country appeared well cultivated, and the inhabitants were reaping their harvest at the time. The Jongpons gave permission for the party to travel to Nubri in accordance with the terms of the passport, but, as the route was reported to be closed by heavy falls of snow, it was only by more presents that a pass allowing M—H to proceed as far as Kirong was obtained. Beyond Kirong the route nears the river, and for about one hun- dred paces is carried over a gallery about six feet wide, run along the perpendicular face of the rock at a height of from fifteen to twenty feet above the water’s edge. The gallery rests on thick iron bolts driven into the rock at intervals, over which planking is loosely laid: the outer edge is fenced by a rudely made rope passed round wooden posts fixed to the bolts. At Naiakot the route turned westwards, and, crossing the watershed of the Tirsuli River, de- scended into the valley of the Buri Gunduk, one of the chief rivers of Nepaul, which M— H ascended as far as Nubri, along a route nearly parallel with the line of his southward journey. Thence he _ retraced his steps along the Buri Gunduk to Arughat, a Nepaulese village, where the party were detained three days pending the result of inquiries as to whence they had come and for what purpose. The explorer professed to have gone all the way to Nubri in search of one of his dependants, who, he alleged, had run away from M— H’s home in Jumla with a large sum of money some time before, but whom he had not succeeded in finding. He said that, having failed in his object, he was anxious to return home v7é Tir- beni, where he intended going through the customary religious observances. He was then allowed to proceed, but warned, that, owing to the disturbed state of the country consequent on the recent insurrection in Khatmandu, he was liable to detention in several places. His further route to Tirbenighat, on the British frontier, lay in a south-westerly direction.” ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. Alternating Current Electro-Motors.! THE alternating system of electrical distribution possesses many advantages for distributing electrical energy over extended areas; it has, however, certain disadvantages, among others that of not at present allowing the use of electric motors for the distribution of power. In any central station supplying electric lights the full capacity of the plant is utilized but a short time during the twenty-four hours, and, taking the whole day, we will find that we have sold an amount of energy. equal to a half or a third — perhaps even less 1 Abstract of a paper read before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, by Dr. Louis Duncan, Johns Hopkins University. [Vor. XI. No. 264 — of the amount we could supply supposing we worked always at full capacity. , If we draw a curve representing the energy used at different hours of the day for lighting, it will be something like O D E H & G Xin Fig. 1. The total amount we could have sold isd OX &. If we can use motors on the circuit, we can sell an additional amount of power such that the power used for lighting and by the motors never exceeds the maximum capacity of the station. For instance, if the motors work until 6 P.M., we can use for them a horse-power equal to / /, and the total energy we can sell for the motors is HZ KZ. The solid part of our diagram is all of the energy that a purely alternating system can expect to utilize: a continuous current system, by employing storage-batteries, could fill the whole of the area 4 O X B. In the alternating system the current and electro-motive force may be represented by the curves I and II, Fig. 2, the maximum value of the current lagging behind the maximum of the electro- motive force. In the main circuit a high electro-motive force of constant maximum value is used, and this is reduced at points of consumption to the low potential necessary for safety, and for use with incandescent lamps, by ‘ transformers ;’ that is, by ‘induction- coils’ working backward. The value of the system lies in this: by using high potentials in the main or primary circuit, we can trans- * mit a great deal of energy with comparatively little current, and therefore with little loss in the lines. This enables us to use small conductors, and avoid the large investment in copper neces- sary in distributing energy by the direct system. If we can use motors in this system, we can almost double our receipts with comparatively little increase in our expenses. The plant remajns the same; the salaries, interest on investment, and depreciation, are only slightly increased; our main additional ex- pense is for the fuel. The forms of motors that can be run by alternating currents are (1) an ordinary series-wound motor; (2) a motor built like an alter- nating current dynamo, the field-magnets being excited by the ve Sa Fic. 2. alternating current, which is first commutated so that its direction is always the same; (3) the same arrangement as the last, except that the field-magnets are excited by a continuous current from some external source ; (4) the form proposed by Prof. E. Thomson, in which the armature currents are not supplied from any external source, but are induced in them by the alternations of the field- current. Of these forms, (3) appears the most promising. Its advantages are, that when it is once started it will perfectly govern itself, re- volving at such a speed that its own reversals of electro-motive force occur with the same rapidity as those of the dynamo driving it ; it is cheap to construct, and durable ; and it should be efficient, and give a greater output than corresponding machines of the other types. Its disadvantages are, that it must be first driven to its proper number of revolutions before the alternating currents will run it; there must be some external source of continuous current to excite the field-magnets ; and if a load possessing any considerable inertia be suddenly applied, the motor will stop. It is proposed to avoid these difficulties in the following way: FEBRUARY 24, 1888.] with the main circuits there should be run an auxiliary continuous current circuit from the central station, of a capacity of, say, ten per cent of the power to be supplied. This continuous current would have two uses: in the first place, it would excite the field- magnets ; and, in the second, it would start the motor. This last could be accomplished by having a commutator on the motor-shaft that would reverse the current through the armature every time an armature coil passed a pole. Now, by a simple switch, we could first turn on the continuous current, which would start the motor, and then, when the armature had reached its proper number of revolutions, we could turn the handle a little further, and make the alternating circuit through the armature, at the same time breaking the continuous circuit. To prevent the stopping of the motor on the sudden application of a load, there should be some form of friction-pulley on the shaft that would turn just before the motor had passed its maximum possible work. The easiest way to decide which of the possible forms of motor is best, is to experiment on them all. It is not necessary to experi- ment on a number of motors of each form; but if we make suitable observations, and know how to draw deductions from our results, we can tell very closely, from experiments on one motor, what are the capabilities of the type. GaAS-ENGINES AND WIND-MILLS FOR ELECTRIC LIGHTING. — Up to the present there have been few private houses supplied with electric lights. The central stations have been placed in the more crowded business portions of the towns, and lights have not been distributed at great distances from them. There are other reasons why incandescent lights have not been more rapidly introduced : the general public has not had sufficiently brought before it the ad- vantages of electric lighting over gas from an artistic and hygienic point of vlew; it has been considered mainly from the standpoint of cost as compared with gas. In many cities gas is supplied over extended areas, embracing sometimes the suburbs for miles around. For the more wealthy suburban inhabitants it would be easy to light their houses by electricity, using a gas-engine for power, and employing a storage-battery in connection with the dynamo. Some figures obtained at the late electrical exhibition in New York will be ofinterest. We find, if we consider a five-foot gas-burner as giv- ing a light of 16-candle power, that 130 feet of gas supplied to a gas-engine will give as many incandescent lamps, these being fed directly from the dynamo, as would 150 feet of gas burned directly. If we use a storage-battery, and allow it 70 per cent efficiency, we have 30 incandescent lamps using 186 feet of gas, to 150 feet for the gas-burners. To the expense of the electric light, moreover, we must add the interest on the plant, depreciation, breakage of lamps, etc. These items will perhaps double the expense of the electric light. The cost could, however, be reduced if two or three people living close together would use the same plant: it could be still further reduced if cheap fuel-gas could be supplied for the engine. As far as cost goes, then, the electric lights supplied in this way would be more expensive than gas; but for people of means, the greater beauty of the light, and its healthfulness, to- gether with the many smaller offices the electricity could be made to perform, would repay the increase in cost. Where there is no gas, it has been proposed to use wind-mills. Mr. A. R. Wolff states that a properly constructed wind-mill will govern itself for all velocities of wind exceeding six miles per hour ; further, that on the average, for at least eight hours out of twenty-four, the wind exceeds this velocity. ‘Total calms in excess of two days’ dura- tion are practically unknown in the United States.” If these figures are correct, it is evident that we can use wind-mills in con- nection with storage-batteries for supplying light to country houses. It should be borne in mind, however, that isolated plants of this kind must have a capacity very much greater than the mean power required ; and in this case, where we may have calms of two or per- haps three days’ duration, the capacity must be sufficient to last over this time. Counting the interest and depreciation, and the breakage of lamps, it will probably be found that the cost will be greater than that of oil; but there is no comparison as regards convenience and beauty, and it is probable that the wind-mill will be used as a source of power for lighting the houses of rich country people. SCIeNCE. 93 ETHNOLOGY. Christmas Customs in Newfoundland. THE Rev. Moses Harvey of St. John, Newfoundland, describes inthe Afontreal Gazette an interesting Christmas custom observed in Newfoundland. Formerly, he says, at this season, ‘mumming’ was carried on to a large extent; but the practice at last became an intolerable nuisance in the streets, and was put down by law. Firing salutes on Christmas Day, once a general custom, has also been prohibited, to the greater comfort of every one. A curious custom prevailed hereon St. Stephen’s Day (Dec. 26). It was called ‘The Burying of the Wren.’ Bands of boys and youths, with some rude musical instruments, went about the streets on that day carry- ing a green bough, to which were fastened ornaments of colored paper and either a dead bird or the figure of one. They called at the doors as they made their rounds, and sang a rude doggerel, of which the following was the burden :— ““ The wren, the wren, The king of all birds, On St. Stephen’s Day Was caught in the furze. Though he is little, His honor is great, So rise up, kind lady, And give us a treat. Up with the kettle And down with the pan, — A penny or ‘ tuppence’ To bury the ‘wran.’”’ The contributions thus levied by the youngsters were spent in the purchase of cakes and sweetmeats. The custom is now almost extinct, but some faint and forlorn attempts are still made by a few boys to keep it up, and in a few years it will probably pass into oblivion. It is curious to find that a similar ceremony was once practised in the Isle of Man. In Waldron’s works, published in 1711, in describing the Isle of Man, the author says, ‘‘ Here, on the 24th of December, towards evening, all the servants have a holiday. They go not to bed all night, but ramble about till the bells ring in all the churches, which is at twelve o’clock. Prayers being over, they go to hunt the wren, and, having found one of these poor birds, they kill her and lay heron a bier with the utmost solemnity, bringing her to the parish church, and burying her with a whimsical kind of solemnity, singing dirges over her in the monks’ language, which they call her knell, after which Christmas begins.” It is evidently the same ceremony, in an altered form, that is practised here. What is its origin, how it came here, or whether it is kept up elsewhere on this side of the Atlantic, is not known. BOOK-REVIEWS. Harvard Remintscences. By ANDREW P. PEABODY. Boston, Ticknor. 12%. $1.25. THIS work, by the venerable professor of Christian morals at Harvard College, will be of much interest to graduates of the col- lege, both younger and older, and by no means devoid of interest to the general reader. The author’s reminiscences relate to the time when he was undergraduate, theological student, and tutor, but do not cover the period of his professorship, which he has now held for so many years. The state of things at Harvard in those olden times was so different from the present, that we can hardly repress a smile as we read of it. Thus, Dr. Peabody tells us that a stu- dent’s room was usually destitute of all the means of comfort, and even of the tokens of civilization; that carpets were almost un- known, and friction matches entirely so; and that the entire furni- ture of the room, except the feather-bed, would not have sold for more than ten dollars. The relations between professors and stu- dents is described as one of mutual hostility; the students, in par- ticular, considering the faculty as their natural enemies. As regards study, Dr. Peabody thinks that the best scholars did more work, and the poorer ones less, than they do now. The administration of the college affairs is described as loose and unbusinesslike until the elevation of Josiah Quincy to the presidency, when a thorough re- form was carried out under that distinguished leader, whose pre- 94 vious experience as member of Congress and mayor of Boston had eminently fitted him for the work. Dr. Peabody gives many inter- esting accounts of the modes of teaching and lecturing pursued by the professors of whom he speaks, some of which are full of sug- gestiveness even now. He gives his personal recollections of nearly seventy men who held offices in the college, with excellent sketches of character and interesting anecdotes ; and, though some of those of whom he speaks were hardly known outside the college, not a few had a national reputation. It is hardly necessary to add that the venerable author writes, as always, clearly and with hearty nterest in his subject. The National Stn of Literary Piracy. By HENRY VAN DYKE. New York, Scribner. 16°. 5 cents. THIS pamphlet is a vigorous protest against the absence in this country of an international copyright law, and against the unwill- ingness of our people up to this time to enact such a law. There is nothing in the author's argument that is specially new; but the moral principles involved in the subject have seldom been exhibited with greater force and clearness than they are here. Mr. Van Dyke’s essay was originally a sermon. and the mere fact that a sermon on the subject could be preached to a popular audience is proof that public interest in the question is already awakened. The author treats the subject from a moral standpoint, maintaining that we have no more right to take a foreign author’s work without pay- ing him for it than we have to take any other man’s work, literary or otherwise, in the same way. He treats as irrelevant the argu- ment, sometimes adduced by the opponents of international copy- right, that the American people want cheap literature. ‘The question is,” he remarks, “how do they propose to gratify that desire, fairly or feloniously? My neighbor’s passionate love of light has nothing to do with his right to carry off my candles. The first point to be determined is one of righteousness.” He holds, however, that the republication of foreign works is not only wrong, but injurious to our own people, both by hindering the growth of our national literature, and by helping to weaken the national con- science. The book will be found interesting by all who are inter- ested in the subject, and, if read by the right persons, can hardly fail to have some effect on public opinion. Chemistry, Inorganic.and Organic. By CHARLES LOUDON Buoxam. 6th ed. Philadelphia, Blakiston. 8°. $4.50. THE appearance of the sixth edition of Professor Bloxam’s well- known work follows closely upon the announcement of the death of the author. The general character of the work, its elaborate display of experiment, and practical intent, are the same as in pre- vious editions ; but much of the text has been re-written, and the whole revised and passed through the press under the author’s own supervision. Much new matter has been incorporated (some of date even so late as the recent isolation of fluorine), and the part which deals with organic chemistry has been recast with a view to bringing theoretical relations more clearly to light. The technolog- ical applications of organic chemistry receive considerable atten- tion, and the subject of explosives. In the previous editions, the work has been a favorite, particularly with practical men and stu- dents of applied chemistry. The present edition is an improve- ment upon its predecessors, and a fitting memorial of its lamented author, Benjamin Franklin as a Man of Letters. By JOHN BacH Mc- MASTER. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 16%. $1.25. FRANKLIN'S name has always stood side by side with that of Washington; and there are no other Americans, except perhaps Lincoln and Grant, whose deeds and character are equally well known to the mass of their countrymen. But Franklin’s greatness was chiefly in the fields of politics and science, and it is chiefly as politician and scientist that he is generally known; while his strictly literary works, except the autobiography, are much less read than those of many men who, on the whole, are his inferiors. Yet his literary merits are not slight, and the influence of his writings on the opinions and tastes of his contemporaries was great. He was not only the author of the autobiography and of several scientific papers, but he was also the first great American journalist ; and in SC NCE: [Vot. XI. No. 264 all these capacities he deserves grateful remembrance. It was necessary, therefore, that in a series of works devoted to American men of letters he should have a prominent place, and the sketch of his literary work which Mr. McMaster has written is in most re- spects worthy of its theme. It gives, perhaps, too little space to the political papers which Franklin wrote so abundantly, and which often had great influence on public opinion and on the course of events. Many paragraphs, too, of Mr. McMaster's work are filled with mere lists of articles that Franklin wrote; and these passages could well have been spared in favor of something more important. Nor do we find so good an account of the development of Frank- lin’s mind and character as we could have wished. Yet, in spite of these defects, the book gives an interesting account of Franklin's writings, with a mass of details relating to his life, his business, his associates, and, in short, every thing connected with his literary work. The result is a work which, as an account of Franklin’s place in literature, is not likely to be surpassed. Franklin’s career has always been an example and an incentive to boys and young men that have had to struggle upward from humble beginnings, and deservedly so; for, considering the times in which he lived, his success in politics and science and literature, as well as in acquiring a fortune, was indeed surprising. Mr. McMas- ter, however, agrees with all other good judges, that Franklin’s morality was not of a high order, and that in this respect his life and his philosophy are not what might be wished. “His philos- ophy,” our author remarks, ‘was the philosophy of the useful; the philosophy whose aim it is to increase the power, to ameliorate the condition, to supply the vulgar wants, of mankind. Morality he never taught, and he was not fit to teach it” (pp. 277, 278). With regard to his electrical discoveries, Mr. McMaster expresses the opinion that Franklin was considerably indebted for valuable hints to his friend Ebenezer Kinnersley; but he does not specify the particular contributions that Kinnersley made to the subject. The author points out, too, in another place, that the plan for a union of the Colonies, which Franklin proposed at Albany at the beginning of the French and Indian war, was borrowed from Daniel Coxe, who had proposed the same plan many years before, when Franklin was a boy. Mr. McMaster’s judgment on Franklin con- sidered as a writer only is likely to be generally accepted, and is in brief as follows: “ The place to be allotted Franklin among Ameri- can men of letters is hard to determine. He founded no school of literature. He gave no impetus to letters. He put his name to no great work of history, of poetry, of fiction. ‘Till after his day no such thing as American literature existed. His place is among that giant race of pamphleteers and essayists most of whom went before, but a few of whom came immediately after, the war for independence. And among them he is easily first” (pp- 272 2B. : A Text-Book of Inorganic Chemistry. By VICTOR VON RICH- TER. Tr. by Edgar F. Smith. Philadelphia, Blakiston. $2. If is not surprising, however much to be deprecated, that the elementary literature of branches of knowledge like chemistry, which, constantly expanding, are frequently brought to public notice, and so madeattractive to the popular imagination, should be perennially deluged by the products of the misguided passion for authorship; nor ought it to be unexpected that the great majority of the many text-books of chemistry, general and applied, which come to the light, should shortly disappear utterly from the notice of an intelligent public. The occasional varying of the usual monotony by the appearance of a work of real value to student and instructor, which proves its claim to appreciation by survival in the competition with its fellows, is refreshing. Richter’s text-books are of this sort, and the volume before us represents the third Ameri- can edition, based upon the fifth edition of the German original. The scheme of development follows the order of the ‘ periodic law,’ and the introduction of theory is gradual and opportune. Thus the reader is brought directly into contact with the laws of definite and multiple proportions and the conception of atoms and molecules only when the demonstration of the properties of the halogens leads to the point. So, also, the questions of valence and structure wait the presentation of facts with sufficient fulness to eee FEBRUARY 24, 1888. | show the necessity and worth of the hypotheses advanced. Throughout the inductive method of thought is predominant; but whether the impression left upon the mind of the average student by the disconnected introduction of principles is broad and clear, may be questionable, though the threads are, at least, left in such relation that they may be easily gathered up and properly inter- woven. Thermochemical phenomena claim very considerable attention from the outset, and re-actions are discussed in the light of the law of maximum work. Sometimes, indeed, as it seems, this principle is forced beyond its depth, and phenomena are made to appear as effects of an unvarying law, rather than as illustrations of a princi- ple which has come to be regarded as of by no means universal application. In the main, the spirit of the book is scientific. It is full and minute in the description of processes and facts, well abreast with the times, and for the most part logical and clear, though occasional crudities in the use of English, and now and then an actual lapse from grammatical accuracy, mar, without ex- cuse in a third edition, the general effect. Such faults, though rather less numerous than in the second edition, are particularly noticeable just where they are most undesirable, — in the passages which deal with theories and principles, —and are to be cred- ited largely to the tendency of the translator to cling to the literal rendering of the original rather than strive for an intelligible version. We note with mingled feelings the slight — too slight — improvement over the second edition in the matter of the plate of spectra. Woman and the Commonwealth. Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 8°. THE pamphlet here before us is a plea for woman suffrage; but we doubt if it will have much influence in promoting its object. By GEORGE PELLEw. 25 cents. Boston, The author is so violent a partisan, and so governed by sentiment, . that what he says is more likely to repel than attract those whom he wishes to convert. He goes so far as to declare that women are superior to men, both intellectually and morally, and holds that woman’s influence in politics would be both purifying and elevat- ing. He examines some of thearguments that have been adduced on the other side, and answers some of them very conclusively; but his reply to others can hardly be considered satisfactory. More- over, he does not notice what is to many men the chief objection to woman suffrage; namely, the danger that women would be lia- ble to use their political power to enact moral reforms by law, to the great detriment of politics and of morality. There are good things in the pamphlet, however, and those who already agree with its views will doubtless take pleasure in reading it. : NOTES AND NEWS. THE first number of The American Anthropologist has just been issued. It is highly gratifying to record the establishment of a journal of this scope and character, as it is a sure sign of the growing interest in anthropology. The Anthropological Society of Washington, under whose auspices the journal is published, must be congratulated in its new enterprise, which will be highly wel- comed by all students of the scienceof man. The papers contained in the first number show that the journal will embrace all the nu- merous branches of anthropology. Dr. James C. Welling contrib- utes an inquiry into the law of Malthus; and it is significant of the Washington school of anthropologists that the first paper is devoted to a study in sociology. Col. F. A. Seely, who has so successfully applied the methods used by the Patent Office for tracing inven- tions to ethnological questions, gives a review of the development of time-keeping in Greece and Rome. Dr. Frank Baker’s ‘ An- thropological Notes on the Human Hand’ deals not only with the physiognomy of the hand, but also with current and ancient beliefs referring to the hand. The last paper of the number is a study of the Chane-abal tribe and dialect of Chiapas, by Dr. D. G. Brinton, in which the learned author compares the extant relics of that lan- guage, and gives it its proper place among the Maya dialects. Among the articles promised for future numbers, we notice papers by Maj. J. W. Powell, ‘From Barbarism to Civilization ;’ H. H. Bates, ‘ Discontinuities in Nature’s Methods ;’ and Dr. A. B. Meyer, «The Nephrite Question.’ SCIENCE. | 95 —A despatch from Zanzibar says that messengers from Emin Pacha who passed Uganda on Nov. 17 had no news whatever from Stanley, and that no news of his approach had been received in Wadelai. Further, it is stated in the telegram that King Mwanga has taken a friendly attitude towards Europeans. As Wadelai is only twelve days distant from Uganda, it appears that Stanley had not reached Emin’s province in the middle of October. The next mail from the Kongo, which is due towards the end of this month, will probably bring some information regarding the events at Stan- ley Falls and at the mouth of the Aruvimi, which must have been of some influence upon Stanley’s expedition. It seems unnecessary, so far, to entertain serious apprehensions as to his safety. — A large circle of admirers, both English and American,” says the Pall Mall Gazette, “ will see with pleasure that the Mur- chison medal of the Geological Society is to be conferred this year on Dr. J. S. Newberry of New York, the well-known professor of Columbia College. Dr. Newberry, however, has been in his time active, and indeed distinguished, in other matters besides geology. ‘I remember,’ writes a correspondent, ‘meeting him by chance in Nashville in November, 1863, when he was at the head of the Western department of the Sanitary Commission, —an immense organization whose business it was to dispense, for the benefit of the soldiers of the Republic, great quantities of stores, consisting mainly of medicines, clothing, and comforts of all sorts, subscribed by enthusiastic citizens of the Northern States. Dr. Newberry took me down with him from Nashville to the then seat of war, on the boundary of Georgia, and I can bear witness to the workman- like manner in which he administered his department, and the de- votion with which he was regarded by all his assistants.” LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Errors in ‘ The Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley.’ IT is an ungracious task to criticise at this late day the work of Messrs. Squier and Davis, which has so long been received as the standard on North American archeology ; nevertheless I believe the result will be accepted as a sufficient justification for the at- tempt. It is stated in the text (p. 68), under the heading ‘The Newark Works,’ that the circular structure & “is not, as has been gener- ally represented, a true circle; its form is that of an ellipse, its diameters being twelve hundred and fifty feet and eleven hundred and fifty feet respectively. . . . The area of the enclosure is some- thing over thirty acres.” A short calculation will make it evident that an ellipse having the diameters given above will enclose only twenty-six acres. We also. notice, that, notwithstanding the authors’ statement in the text, their plate (XXV.), which is copied from Colonel Whittlesey’s sur- vey, makes the shorter diameter (Section C—D), 1,200 feet. A carefui resurvey by the agents of the Bureau of Ethnology makes the diameters 1,205 and 1,197 feet, the latter differing but three feet from Colonel Whittlesey’s measurement. The figure is therefore very nearly a true circle, the difference between the diam- eters being only eight feet, instead of one hundred as given by Squier and Davis. They also state that the circular enclosure /, which connects. with the Octagon, “is a true circle two thousand eight hundred and eighty feet, or upwards of half a mile, in circumference.” This. gives a diameter of but 917 feet, while the section 4—Z of the plate makes it 1,050 feet, — measuring from the gateway to the observa- tory, —a difference of one hundred and thirty-three feet between the text and plate. According to the survey made by the agents of the bureau, this diameter is 1,058 feet, and the one transverse to it 1,054 feet; the figure varying, in fact, but little from a true circle. It appears from these facts that the authors, although adopting Colonel Whittlesey’s survey in their plate, have differed from it in their text without a word of explanation, the variation in each case being a blunder on their part. The area of the Octagon, as shown by the resurvey, is but a small’ fraction over thirty-six acres, including the inner halves of the walls ; whereas it is given on the plate as fifty acres, and in the text as. “something over fifty acres.” 96 It is apparent that these mistakes cannot be attributed to typo- graphical errors or mere slips of the pen. We are forced, therefore, to ascribe them to unpardonable carelessness. Turning to their Plate XX., representing the ancient works in Liberty Township, Ross County, we find in a supplementary plan (A), a diagram showing their method of surveying circles, of which an explanation is given in a footnote on p. 57. In this note the authors say, ‘To put at once all scepticism at rest, which might otherwise arise as to the regularity of these works, it should be stated that they were all carefully surveyed by the authors in person.” After mentioning their method, they add, ‘ The supplementary plan 4 indicates the method of survey, the ‘ Field-Book’ of which, the circle being thirty-six hundred feet in circumference, and the stations three hundred feet apart, is as follows,” etc. It is certainly disappointing, after this positive assurance of ac- curacy in their work, and reference to the ‘ Field-Book,’ to find that the circle used in this illustration of their method is purely an imaginary one, as there is no circular enclosure of the dimensions given, either figured or mentioned in their book. Another reason for being disappointed where such precision is predicated is the fact, ascertained by examination of the works, that ree a \\uer iisitisimntnmem merase eat ” UT, CAL fi Mr Nia, feed ieee MVEVEN INE TD UL TTT this plate is turned one-quarter round, the left of the page being north instead of the top. Moreover, this error is carried into the plat; the direction of the wall of the square marked ‘N. 45 E.’ being in truth S. 45 E., and of that marked ‘N. 45 W.’ being N. 45 E: in other words, the large circle is south of the square, and not east of it as represented in the plate. A resurvey of the smaller circular enclosure, the only one of the group remaining, proves that it is far from being a true circle. This is clearly shown by the following list of external angles made by the successive chords with each other; or, in other words, the differences in the bearings of the successive chords. The survey was made precisely as suggested by Squier and Davis, except that the chords are each one hundred feet, thus bringing them within the length of a single chain. A gap of 343 feet is omitted, as the wall over this space is too nearly obliterated to be traced satisfac- torily. 2155/3 Suen 4gr45 ite" 7c0 37am NTA C149 dlulETS OTS ne 7°30 NINE 25 eer O4 3 09 IO 44 II 35 13 54 17 18 2 63 Ig 10 20 31 L710 18 35 Ig 28 I5 29 5 57 I2 55 The first course (from Station 1 to 2) was S. 60° W.; from 2 to 3, S. 81° 35’ W.; and so on around, making one hundred feet at each step to Station 23; from 23 to 24, S. 1° 58’ W., 30 feet ; from 24 to 1, S. 23° 20’ W., 313 feet. These figures make it clear that there are sharp curves at some points, and nearly straight stretches at others. I insert here a diagram of this so-called perfect circle prepared by Mr. Middleton, who conducted the survey. It will be seen from this that not only is it irregular, but that the longer diameter is 866 feet and the shorter 748, —a difference of 108 feet. SCIENCE. * repeated, ran to the meat. [Vor. XI. No. 264 Although there are some puzzling questions connected with these Ohio works, yet it is apparent that the mathematical accuracy of which Messrs. Squier and Davis speak is imaginary, and is based, in fact, upon hypothetical figures. But the worst feature of the case is the evidence thus brought to light of the want of care in their work, thus shaking the confidence which has hitherto been reposed init. Their allusion to a ‘Field-Book’ in connection with a purely imaginary circle, is, to say the least, misleading. CyRus THOMAS. Youngsville, Penn., Feb. 8. Cat Phenomena. A YOUNG male cat, from the first quite secluded from other as- sociations than those of his home, exhibited great fondness for bot- tled Tuscan olives when first offered this fruit, eagerly eating it, and rubbing his head and rolling upon the floor where it was dropped. This is repeated on every occasion since. His appetite for olives is seemingly insatiable, and experiments show that it is not because these are salted. He is indifferent to the ordinary culinary aromatics and toilet perfumes. What aromatics are used in the ‘aromatized sea-salt’ said to be used in the foreign pickling of olives? None are spoken of in the California processes, which, however, include marine salt; but this can have no pertinence to cat-senses. Have others observed the appetite, and will any one who can try cats with unpickled olives, both green and ripe, report the result? The subject has bearings on animal sensation and its relations. A series of various experiments, shutting out the pos- sibility of artificially acquired individual appetites for flavors and odors, would be interesting. As related to other considerations, it may be mentioned that the cat above referred to, the second time it was offered meat in its early kittenhood, and with a peculiar call therewith for the first time Later, after a child had several times tickled the cat’s feet by reaching under the open-work weaving of a cane-seat chair on which the animal was sitting, the cat was a number of times observed to repeat the kicking and shaking of its feet on a similar chair with no such stimulus, no person being near the chair. The titillation had become speedily associated with the touch of the cane-seat itself. These facts illustrate the quick and permanent sense-associations of animals, which are the secret of the formation of instincts (along with variation of acts and Darwin’s theory of the natural selection of the same), and also of many al- leged novel or isolated acts that are construed as rational. Inherited domestic instinct was shown by the same cat, when, in its early and feeble wanderings asa kitten about the room, it sought a door with signs of a desire to have it opened. From accompany- ing circumstances, it was inferred that this was connected with some severe lessons on the necessity of personal neatness inflicted on some unknown ancestor: at all events, it seemed to be an inherited sense-association of some kind with the door, and suggests that many so-called ‘ intelligent acts’ may be of this character. A fact opposed to perception as always the stimulus to instinct is every day verified by this cat, now nine months old, in his vigorous pawing of the wooden box itself and the adjacent wall, after using the dry earth in his large, shallow sanitary box. The perception of soil, rather than of hard box and wall, should alone stimulate the instinct, if such mental act is necessary. In the act of preparatory digging, the perception of soil is manifest. It is absent in the cover- ing process, as above shown; also in the same cat’s frequent at- tempts to cover such food as it refuses at its usual place of feeding, by scraping the oil-cloth of the floor. There is, however, perception as well as sensation in the act of this and other cats when pausing to smell around and locate anew the matter to be covered. The process of covering is the most wonderful part of the instinct, and originally must have been the last acquired : in some cases it seems to be more or less lost ; in the same individual cases it is at times omitted or little fulfilled. It is purely automatic. The wonder is, how, in the wild state, it was ever of enough consequence to cats and dogs to be acquired by natural selection; and how it was of sufficient consequence to be thoroughly acquired as automatic, while at the same time it is so poorly ingrained as to habitually blunder, and even fall into much disuse, in some cases. H. W. PARKER. Grinnell, Io., Feb. 9. FEBRUARY 24, 1888.]. The Nutriment in Edible Fungi. Iv is a favorite theory with some that the nutritive value of many of the fungi that are used as food is almost equal to the nutritive value of meat. A recent statement by the eminent chemist of Ger- many, Mr. C. T. Morner, is to the effect that the total nitrogen in this class of fungi varies between 2 and 3.64 per cent in the dry material; that 41 per cent of the total nitrogen is useful in ali- mentation ; that all the rest belongs to non-assimilable bodies ; and “that, notwithstanding the relatively high figures, fungi constitute a very mediocre food, since the figures relate to dry material, and fungi contain enormous quantities of water. Mr. Morner, in this connection, gives a number of tables which show the amount of the several fungi that would be required to equal a pound of beef: mushrooms, 9 pounds; Lactarzus deliczosus, 24 pounds; chanter- elle, 41 pounds; morel, 15 pounds; Polyporus ovznus, 67 pounds. Some recent experiments at the agricultural experiment station of the State of New York do not appear to sustain the statements of Professor Morner. A quantity of mushrooms (Agarzcus cam- pestrzs) growing ina pasture was gathered and subjected to an analysis, and the digestibility of the albuminoids determined by the pepsin method. The results were as follows :— Fresh | Water Substance, | Free \WERGS Govdecesdo0b0Obcen DOEUaNS. doonooRedoauod 89.15 | AMIR coogoonwocboadboovousapbeDooS 85 | 7.80 Albuminoids... | 56.00 Crude fibre...... 7.05 Nitrogen-free extract... .......2. secesse scene ee 21.83 Mat (etherextract) ream matcclelereljaisiaielelalisis\eleeicielst« d 7-32 photalimitrop entree elleem etree cieiclette cise 8.96 Albuminoids digested 84.50 The total nitrogen found in the dry substance was about 2.5 times as great as the highest figures given by the German chemist, while the digestibility placed it among the exceptionally rich nitro- genous foods. Experiments were also made with puff-balls. A very large one was found to have been broken into many fragments by careless handling. Many of the broken fragments were gathered together and taken for analysis. This specimen was in fine edible maturity. Another fresh one, a fine large specimen of Lycoperdon giganteum, was examined. The following measurements were taken in connection with the analysis: greatest diameter, 12.5 inches; height, 7.5 inches ; horizontal circumference, 37.25 inches ; vertical circumference, 33.5 inches; weight, 2,864 grams, or 6.35 pounds. The puff-ball was kept until the following morning be- fore examination, when it was found to have lost 5.93 per cent by weight. A slice from the centre was taken for analysis. This contained 92.18 per cent of water. In the following table, No, 1 refers to the whole puff-ball, which was larger and more mature than No. 2, the broken one. No.1 No. 2 Fresh Water Water Substance, Free. Free. \WWEtGicodee) pasodsodbebaccaooseasamtooe 92.18 JASN dan noodappongagcaoatdd adadag4o6: laces -58 7-47 6.07 PAI buminoidsipetsprcteren iste isieionieereteteeter 5.39 66.34 57-44 Crude fibre .89 11.42 11.07 Nitrogen-free extract I-05 13.33 22.05 Mata(etherjextract) oo. <2). -jejeie1e|efe\e e101=i=10 ob 1.44 2-47 Total nitrogen.........++006 10.63 9-19 Per cent albuminoids digested..... 70.04 81.72 The total nitrogen for one of the puff-palls was about three times SCIENCE. 97 as great as the highest figures by Morner ; and, even with the large percentage of water, it compares favorable in nutritive value with meat. It would seem, from the analyses which were made at the station, that Morner’s specimens must have been very poor ones, or else the fungi in Germany are not so rich in albuminoids as those- growing wild in the State of New York. FREDERIC G. MATHER. Albany, N.Y., Feb. 14. A Worm in a Hen’s Egg. ON Sunday, Feb. 12, 1888, a lady in this city, on opening the egg of an ordinary hen, observed a worm lying coiled in the albumen or ‘white’ of the egg, near the lesser or pointed end. She placed the egg in a saucer, and the albumen flowed out through the opening in the shell, carrying the worm with it. After exhibiting to friends during the day, it was brought to me, Feb.12._ Upon examination, I find it to be an Ascarzs lumbrécozdes about four inches in length ;. and, with the statement verified, the phenomenon becomes interest- ing in many ways. G. C, ASHMUN. Cleveland, O., Feb. 14. Self-Recording Rain-Gauge. THIS recording mechanism is designed to be attached directly to- the Signal Service standard gauge, now in such general use at all regular stations, and-also at nearly all volunteer stations. The figure is a sectional elevation of the gauge with the record- ing devices in position. The rain is received in the cylindrical part R, and is conducted by means of the funnel-shaped bottom into: the inner tube or tall cylinder, which is made of drawn brass tubing, accurately sized, so that its sectional area is just one-tenth that of the receiver A, thus magnifying the rainfall tenfold. is made eight inches in diameter, and the brass tube is twenty inches high, and holds two inches of rainfall, any in excess of this quantity over- flowing into the outer cylinder, where it is retained and subsequently measured. The recording mechanism needs little explanation. Definite, positive rotation of the dial-wheel in response to movements of the: float is secured by use of the sprocket wheel and chain. A few links of the latter in enlarged view are shown on the left. The sprocket-wheel is graduated into divisions, each corresponding to a hundredth of an inch of rainfall. At intervals of every five divisions the wheel is set with small pins, which, when the wheel revolves, successively deflect a feeble spring, and momentarily close an electric circuit, thus recording successive five-hundredths of an inch of rain- fall. The record is made in precisely the same manner as that in. which the wind-velocity is now recorded at all signal service sta- tions. Wires from the rain-gauge lead to a battery and an electro- magnet which operates an armature provided with a pen or pencil that traces a line on a sheet of paper wound on a cylinder slowly revolved by clock-work. When the electric circuit is closed, the pen is drawn aside, and makes a small notch in the line, each notch, representing five-hundredths of an inch of rainfall. Although the chain is quite light, weighing but a few grams per foot, yet its weight cannot be neglected, modifying, as it does, the conditions of equilibrium between the float and counterpoise. Thus, imagine the gauge to be empty, and the float resting on the bottom. It is evident that a certain quantity of water must be added before the float will begin to be lifted on the water. This condition is in- dicated in the figure by the dotted lines, and with the height of the water marked %,. In order to properly include in the measurement this quantity of water, which must be added before the float just begins to be lifted, the graduated disk, which for this purpose is. made adjustable on the sprocket-wheel, is set, not with its zero-line to the index-point, but with some other line, — a line corresponding in its value to the quantity of water required to just support the float when at the bottom of the gauge. Allowance is thus made once for all, and the graduated disk, with its pins, firmly and finally attached to the body of the wheel. Now, as more water is added, the float rises. But it is observed, that, as the chain passes over the wheel, its weight is not only added to that on the counterpoise side, but is also subtracted from that on the float side; so that the equilibrium is, on the one hand, disturbed by twice the weight of the chain passing over the wheel, and, on the other hand, is restored by the rise of the float itself in the water. It follows, therefore, s 98 ; that the float gradually rides higher and higher on the water as more and more chain passes over the wheel. All mechanical ar- rangements of fusee or other expedient to secure uniform flotation are entirely unnecessary, since the variable flotation in this case fol- lows a well-defined linear law, and is perfectly compensated for by a proper choice of the diameter of the wheel taken in connection with the number of divisions into which it is graduated ; that is, we donot make the divisions on the disk to correspond to the amount of chain passing over the wheel, but to the actual rise of water in the tube, regardless of what the former may have been. However, since we wish to record each five-hundredth of an inch of rainfall, the rise of water in the tube necessary to cause the wheel to make just one revolution must be some multiple of five-tenths of an inch, as the pins in the graduated disk must be equally distant through- out, and five-tenths of an inch of water in the tube correspond ito five-hundredths of an inch of rainfall. Moreover, the outer circumference of the wheel must likewise be some multiple of the length of the links of the chain in order that the teeth may be equally distant. The dimensions of the wheel and other parts to fit any particular chain are therefore chosen under certain limitations, but are easily found as follows : — Let D = the diameter of the tube C. cele a coNiLcmtloate “ w = weight of unit length of chain. Gy = Si oevolumevofi water: « R = radius of the wheel on its pitch line. ““ # = number of pins to be placed in the wheel. SCMEZ2ETC—te 1 (bee “ teeth in wheel. «7 = length of links of chain from centre to centre. “fg = depth of water when float is just supported at bottom. “« f = any depth of water to be measured. «“ £ = length of chain passing over wheel while the float rises on this water. «« f' = amount the float rises out of the water in coming to this position. SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. No. 264 In its upper position the float displaces less water than when just supported at the bottom, the difference being a volume, 7a? BSF Ve and the weight of this volume is pa to twice the weight of chain passing over the wheel in reaching its upper position, or na? 8wL — w'h' = 2wL, and h' = ——: raw hence, while the float has risen a distance Z, the surface of the water has risen a distance Z—/’, and its height from the bottom of the tube is Z—%' +4, ; but the gauge is so made that the true rain- fall is measured not from the surface around the float, but from the surface the water would assume were the float entirely removed. The volume of water occupying the annular space around the float is ee (D'—a@)(h,—h’). When the float is removed, this volume may be considered as spreading itself out in a layer of thickness 7, given by the ex- pression aD? us — t= — (D?—a’\(h,—h’). But the former thickness of the annular volume of water was hi —h' ; hence, on removing the float, the surface of the water will fall a distance (2,—')—Z, which will be found to be a? — (h,—%’). D? The true amount of rainfall is therefore found, after reduction, to be ( 8zw I I } D?—@ A= EL {1—— | — — — + hy. t Tw \a> DD? y D* The last term is the amount of rainfall in true measure that must collect before the float begins to be lifted, and is the number on the graduated disk that must come opposite the index-point when the float touches the bottom of the gauge. To find the radius of the wheel, we will consider one complete revolution and the rise of water in the tube necessary to pro- duce this amount of motion. For this we must have 8w [1 I ogm = eR} 1 i=-5| - aw'|a? DP? ! but 27k = x1 i 8w (I it | m=2nl ~1I— —-— : Lal & D?) a ad’ } for the quantities are all known but wz, 2, and d. This equation may also be written nb a= an — m and from these the value of @ is found as follows: a trial-value of dis assumed of approximately its desired final value. With this in the first of the last two equations, a few values of 7 are computed, using such consecutive values of z (the number of teeth) as would correspond to a wheel of reasonable size. In all probability, none of these values of 7#z will be whole numbers, but some one of them will doubtless be very nearly a whole number. Taking the inte- gral part of this and the corresponding value of z, the final value of d@ is computed from the last equation. With the same value of m, the radius of the wheel is given by the expression nl kR=—, 27 and all the elements of the gauge are completely determined. C. F. MARVIN. or m=n Ear Washington, D.C., Feb. 13. FEBRUARY 24, 1888. | SCHEIN Ci: 111 BOOK-NOTES. —D. C. Heath & Co. will publish, March 1, the Old English epic poem ‘Judith.’ It will be edited with introduction, translation, and glossary, by Prof. Albert S. Cook of the University of California, who has endeavored to adapt it to the scholar, the academic stu- dent, and the general reader. — The Middlesex Institute, Malden, Mass., proposes to publish a flora of Middlesex County, giving a complete list of the phaner- ogams and vascular cryptogams. In the lower cryptogams, lists prepared by special- ists will be given, as complete as the present state of knowledge permits. The issue of the work is dependent on subscription. — An earnest and vigorous exposition, in a cheap, handy form, of the moral aspects of the international copyright question, is some- thing that has been much needed. Such a paper has now been published by Charles Scribner’s Sons of New York, in the well- known paper-covered series of this house, at a price which ought to insure for it a circu- lation of hundreds of thousands throughout the country. The title of the pamphlet is “The National Sin of Literary Piracy,’ and the author is the Rev. Dr. Henry Van Dyke. Dr. Van Dyke considers the subject under three phases: (1) the nature of the national sin of literary piracy, (2) its punishment, and (3) itscure. His paper is well worth reading, and ought to touch the public conscience and have its effect upon public opinion. The publishers will send any one a copy upon re- ceipt of five cents. —In glancing over the table of contents of The Chautauguan for March, one is struck with the excellence of the names. Among them are Maurice Thompson, Hjalmer Hjorth Boyesen, Pres. C. K. Adams of Cor- nell University, the Rev. Lyman Abbott, Lieut. Frederick Schwatka, Dr. Titus Mun- son Coan, Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, and many others equally well known in the literary world. — The aim of the magazine Our Little Men and Women, 1888 (Boston, D. Lothrop Company) is to interest children just at the time they begin to read for themselves, and lead them along for a year or two with pic- tures and stories and pleasant tasks, — so pleasant as to make them forget the task part altogether. Bady/and, 1888, in general, will be about the same as in 1887. — March 25, the New York Shakspeare Society will issue the first volume of ‘ The Bankside Shakspeare’ on an entirely novel plan, being the text of the earliest version of each play printed in the lifetime of William Shakspeare, paralleled with the 1623 or first folio text, and both texts numbered line by line, and scrupulously collated with both the folio and quarto texts. The Bankside edi- tion entirely disposes of the Donnelly cipher. It prints the earliest text side by side with the 1623 text, thus showing at a glance the mutations, augmentations, and curtailments which the plays underwent during their first stage life at the hands of literary pirates, stage censors, and careless printers, and in the mouths of the actors, thus rendering it at once apparent that in neither text could a cipher be found to-day by an exact mathe- matical process, even had one been originally concealed therein. L.L. Lawrence is clerk of the publication committee of the Shak- speare Society of New York, P.O. box 5, Newtown, Queens County, N.Y. Calendar of Societies. Engineers’ Club, St. Louis. Feb. 15.—O. L. Petitdidier, Practical Notes on Masonry and Stone-Laying. Engineers’ Club, Philadelphia. Feb. 4. — A. Marichal, Rainfall, Torrey Botanical Club, New York. Feb, 14 —TIsabel S. Arnold, Notes on the Flora of the Upper Chemung Valley ; Exhibi- tion of microscopical objects by members of the Section of Histology. Philosophical Society, Washington. feb. 18.—H. H. Bates, Increasing Industrial Employment of the Rarer Metals ; F. W. Clarke, The Determination of Atomic Weights; A. W. Greely, Trans-Mississippi Rainfall; J. W. Spencer, Notes on the Drift North of Lake Ontario; William Hallock, Note on the Forma- tion of Alloys. feb, 22. —G. W. Hill, On the Interior Con- stitution of the Earth as respects Density; H. A. Hazen, A Failure in the Application of the Law of Probabilities. Publications received at 13-18 Editor’s Office, Feb. Bioxam, C. L. Chemistry, Inorganic and Organic. 6th ed. Philadelphia, Blakiston. 788p. 8°. $4.50. Bureau oF Epucation. Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1885-86. Washington, Government. 792p. 8°. CorNELL University Register, The, 1887-88. N_Y., Cornell Univ. 216p. 12°. Danmar. W. The Tail of the Earth; or, The Location and Condition of the ‘‘ Spirit World.’’ Brooklyn, The Author. 60 p. 8°. 25cents. Gisson, J. Chips from the Earth’s Crust; or, Short Studies in Natural Science. New York, T. Nelson &Sons. 304p. 16°. $1.25. Great Waterfalls. Cataracts, and Geysers. New York, T. Nelson & Sons. 288 p. 16°. $1.25. MonteitTH, J. Familiar Animals and their Wild Kin- Ithaca, dred. Cincinnati, Van Antwerp, Bragg, & Co. 208 Pp. 16°. Serpet, R. Industrial Instruction: a Pedagogic and Social Necessity. Tr. by Margaret K. Smith. Bos- ton, Heath. 170 p. 12°. 8ocents. Stater, J W. Sewage Treatment, Purification and Utilization. New York, Van Nostrand. 271 p. T228 Srewart, B., and Gee, W. W. H. Practical Physics. Vol. I. Electricity and Magnetism. Macmillan. 221 p. 16°. 60 cents. Van Dyxe, H. The National Sin of Literary Piracy. New York, Scribner. 23 p. 16°. 5 cents. West, Mary Allen. Childhood: its Care and Culture. Chicago. Woman’s Temp. Publ. Assoc 772 p. 8°. Wuat Shall we Talk About ? or, Things that Every One ought to know. New York, T. Nelson & Sons. 320 p. 16°. $r. Woopwarp, C. M. Boston, Heath. 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HODGES, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. GERMAN SIMPLIFIED SPANISH SIMPLIFIED The following will be found eminently practical for self-instruction: (1.) German Simplified—Complete in 12 numbers (with keys) $1.20. (2) Spanish Simplified— 12 numbers (with keys) ro cts. each; No, 6 now ready ; anew number on the first of every month ; Sold by all booksellers. Sent, postpaid, on receipt “of price, by Prof. A. Knoflach, r40 Nassau St., New York. No. 264 iv SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. " S. R. Wincirett & Co., 185 Wabash Ave., EDRE | VSI Volapuks Gyicign publih the Haddock or Pavapik, a een ae S by Chas. E. Sprague, $1.00, and an Adridged Grammar : Onn nt of Volapik. by rrof. Kerckhoffs, adapted to the use of KG af B GLU E = : English-speaking people by Karl Dornbusch. 20 cents. = Mailed on receipt of price. Used by thousands of first-class Manufacturers aud Mechanics ontheir best work. Its success has brought a lot of imitators copying us in every Way possible. 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Capes 676) 0% 0 6 5 G60 335% Advertisements must be acceptable in every respect. Copy recetved until Wednesday, 10 A.M. SCIENCE is sent free to those who advertise in it as long as advertisement continues. meee NE FRIDAY, MARCH 2, 1888. AT THELAST MEETING of the Washington Philosophical Society, Mr. William Hallock presented a very noteworthy communication upon the formation of fusible alloys. Wood’s alloy, which melts at about 64° C., is composed of lead, tin, cadmium, and bismuth, and the lowest melting-point among its constituents is 230° C. Mr. Hal- lock finds, however, that when the several metals are mixed together in filings, and exposed for twenty-four hours to the heat of an or- dinary water-bath, the alloy is produced, and the mass becomes fluid. So, also, when freshly cut slices of sodium and potassium are simply pressed together at ordinary temperatures, liquefaction at once begins, and the fluid alloy is formed. In brief, it seems probable that the phenomena may be generalized, and that all fusible alloys may be obtained from their solid constituents at temperatures very slightly in excess of the melting-points of the compounds, Previous fluidity of either constituent is not neces- sary. It will be seen that these results bear directly upon the work reported by Spring, who claimed to obtain fusible alloys by pressure alone, but who neglected to prove that the temperature of his ma- terials never at any point reached 70° C. Probably, also, Mr. Hal- lock’s discovery may have decided bearing upon certain questions of molecular dynamics. His results are extraordinary, but. it is more extraordinary that the phenomena had escaped notice hitherto. A WRITER on the psychology of acting, in Lougman's Mag- azine, has introduced the inductive method into the solution of problems connected with the histrionic art. The question has often been debated, whether the effective personation of a part re- quires a real experience of the emotions concerned, so that it is acting only in the sense of artificially exciting a series of emotions ; or whether the whole performance is a piece of art, with the emo- tions, or what to the audience shall stand for such, as entirely as- sumed as is the costume. The writer in question has addressed a circular upon this and allied topics to members of the actor’s pro- fession, and the majority of his answers decide in favor of the real emotion. The emotion of grief is taken as the typical one; and here the sad expression is, as a rule, not put on, but is the counter- part of a real sympathetic state. Real tears flow, often to the extent of interfering with distinct articulation ; nor can the impres- sion be at once shaken off upon leaving the stage. A pertinent instance is cited of an actor and an actress having to perform a touching scene many scores of times, and each night resolving ‘not to make fools of themselves" by sobs and tears; but each night they broke down, and showed the reality of their emotions. Another actress is reported as saying that if she could play what- ever piece most suited her humor each evening, her task would be a much easier one. The general verdict is, that the greatest suc- cess is produced by arealemotion. If one regards the performances of persons in the hypnotic condition as ‘acting’ in this sense, this is precisely the conclusion that the psychologist would expect. It is, however, not a universal experience, some actors testifying that their performance is almost entirely a planned, cool, intellectual artifice ; nor are such actors absent among the ‘stars’ of the pro- fession. That the assumption of a 7é/e can by repetition become sufficiently assimilated to be taken up by the automatic self, is shown by the experience of a very celebrated actress, who played the ‘ potion scene’ in ‘Romeo and Juliet’ without knowing it, and could only with the greatest difficulty be prevented from playing the scene over again, so confident was she that she had not played it. THE COMMITTEE on the geology of Rhode Island of the Provi- dence Franklin Society has issued a valuable report on the geology of Rhode Island, including a useful bibliography of this subject, and setting forth briefly the various attempts made by the society to organize a thorough topographical and geological survey of the State. The committee was appointed in 1883, and we quote from its valuable report the following general remarks, which show the ob- ject of the work undertaken by the committee: “ Our chief purpose has been to bring to the notice of the Franklin Society what has already been learned about the geology of Rhode Island. We have attempted little original investigation, but have tried to lay the foundations essential to future progress. The necessity for a col- lation of authorities is apparent to one who seeks to gain a clear idea of the geology of Rhode Island. Information is scattered through many publications. The Franklin Society endeavored to secure a new survey of the State in 1875-76, and again made an effort for a topographical survey in 1885-86; but thus far nothing has been accomplished. This report is published as the best con- tribution the society can make to the cause, —a step towards a complete survey; for a knowledge of what has already been learned is the proper foundation on which to build.” It is to be hoped that the unceasing endeavors of the society to undertake a survey on a similar plan to that of Massachusetts, in co-operation with the United States Geological Survey, will be successful. In 1885 Gov- ernor Brown sent a message to the Assembly, commending such a plan, which involved two annual payments of three thousand dol- lars, but the Assembly did not act on it. The present publication, which is a valuable help to all students of the subject of the geol- ogy and geography of New England, we hope will help to show the necessity of undertaking a thorough survey. IS THE RAINFALL INCREASING UPON THE PLAINS? TO most of the inhabitants of that broad, billowy expanse which stretches from the Missouri to the Rocky Mountains, and from Canada to the Rio Grande, this question may seem unnecessary. It has so long been assumed by them as an axiom that the rainfall is increasing, that the opening of the question to discussion may appear like questioning the Copernican system. They have seen the frontier of settlement moving steadily westward, passing suc- cessively the limits set for it. Thirty years ago all the country west of the Missouri was considered as the ‘Great American Desert,’ in which, without irrigation, agriculture was an impossibility. But the stream of immigration has swept, with each succeeding year, farther and farther up the slope of the plains, driving the border of the desert before it. The 98th meridian was set as the boundary which the farmer could not pass, but now millions of acres are un- der cultivation beyond it; then the 1ooth meridian, but in Kansas and Nebraska the farms stretch scores of miles farther westward. Progress has not, however, been uniform. Seasons of drought have checked it, and have depopulated temporarily large areas; but the settlers have returned to the charge, and have invariably won the day in the end. To-day the cereals are being cultivated in Kansas, without irri gation, nearly to the west boundary of the State, in regions where the annual rainfall twenty years ago was less than twenty inches, —a region which at that time, as was generally agreed, could be rendered productive only by artificial watering. How has this been brought about? Have settlement and tree-planting induced greater rainfall, as is almost universally believed in this region, or are other causes involved ? Of course, if this westward extension of settlement has become 100 possible through an increase of rainfall, such increase must be of notable amount. The effect upon agriculture of a minute increase would be scarcely appreciable, and certainly would not suffice to produce the effects claimed for it, or to explain the wide-spread belief in this increase which is prevalent. In examining the rain- fall records, we are, then, to look for substantial amounts of in- crease, — several inches annually. I would add that these records are now ample for testing this theory, and their testimony should be conclusive. I find in this area twenty-six stations at which rainfall records have been kept for periods ranging from six to twenty-eight years, the total number of years of record being three hundred and ten- These stations are scattered widely over the area in question, from its eastern to its western border, and involve all stages of settle- ment. Now, if there has occurred an increase in the amount of rainfall, that of the later years of any series should, on the whole, be greater than that of the earlier years. I have therefore cut each of these series in the middle, and added up the rainfall of each half. These are presented in the following table, where the first column gives the names of the stations; the second, the number of years in the series ; the third and fourth, the total rainfall in the first and second halves of each series respectively ; and the fifth, the increase or decrease, the former being distinguished by the +, the latter by the — sign :— Fort Leavenworth, Kan............--..-- 28 518 525 +7 QDeavenworth, Kan. .......-......0.050-% 18 366 362 —4 Manhattan, Kan............2..-...eecee 28 400 407 +7 Heawrence sy Keanlessteeleyelsleletei-tsietelelsieeererstere 18 306 319 + 13 ortyWarned wkcan seterittsteleiiaisnecteierettlersters 12 131 119 — 12 Algae, UMN acéooccons odcoscuends, oaouD 8 117 140 + 23 DodgelGitys Kan teeiielslcleleleiclecisininei=).ciatel* 12 105 149 + 44 Wallace, Kan......... 2 6 50 59 +o9 Atchison, Kan............ 8 189 156 = 33 Baxter Springs, Kan..................-5- 6 130 102 — 28 Burlingame, Kan............-. Sabo eoana6 6 84 96 + 12 CouncillGrovewKanseneceeeiete steele 8 178 Iq — 37 Fort Hays, Kan...............+0e+0----- 6 55 79 + 24 MorteRileyapkantepeyerrtasteleteisisreestetsieis aici 16 185 214 + 20 COVE NSS I. Nhos64q050b0n400000de) dad pbebo 8 201 194 -—7 BellevillespKeantrremepeeriecctiteecieeric: 14 184 218 + 34 MelSotosNebierecrteeitteieeerelelserieerrencrscls 6 109 80 — 290 Fort McPherson, Neb..............----++ 6 58 52 —6 North Platte, Neb 12 108 120 + 12 Omaha, Neb............ 18 319 337 + 18 Omahay Agency, NieDieclelesielstersi-le sissies 6 75 78 +3 Mank:on spa kersetrtetetetsre ceteletetstisfersieistenireisi= 12 170 178 +8 Bismarck. wD akwertteccstelerterlceciciisicseis 12 140 102 — 38 Fort Benson, Mont.....................- 6 34 40 +6 Cheyennesaw,yOu-Weplciicciiicsieeiceiaeeicei 16 84 98 + 14 Denver Colmer erprensetileemicielcerststeialeer 14 112 103 19 It will be seen at once that the individual results are contradic- tory in a high degree; those from sixteen stations showing an in- crease, while ten stations show a decrease. These contradictions, which are due to the irregularity of the rainfall may, however, be in a measure eliminated by combining the results, under the sup- position that the change, if any, has been a progressive one. Un- der this assumption, the sum of the earlier halves of the different series should be less than that of the later halves. Adding them together, it is found that the aggregate rainfall at all the stations was, in the first half of the series, 4,408 inches, and in the second half, 4,468 inches; showing that there has apparently taken place an increase of 60 inches in the total amount of rainfall at all these stations in a total of 310 years, or, to put it in another form, there has fallen in each year of the second half of these series 0.4 of an inch more rain than in the first half. It is unnecessary to add that S@IENEE: [Vor. XI. No 265 this is not the sort of increase for which we were searching, as an increase of but a fraction of an inch certainly could not produce the results which are claimed. An examination of the seasonal distribution of the rainfall shows that that also has undergone no material change since settlement began in this region. We may therefore dismiss as baseless the popular idea of an increase in rainfall, either annual or during the growing season, and look else- where for an explanation of the phenomena of settlement which the plains present. The early explorers, of the time of Fremont and the Pacific Rail- road surveys, based their judgments of the capabilities of the country for agriculture upon the character of the natural products, the absence of trees, the presence only of sparse, hardy grasses, the cactus, andthe yucca. Their judgment was a mistaken one, as events have amply proved. Since their time physical geographers have set arbitrary limits to safe farming without irrigation, basing their reasoning upon the known rainfall of the region, and that supposed to be required for the average farm product. Subsequent experience has shown that a much smaller quantity of rain is essential than was supposed. To my mind, there is little more to be said. If it be found, that, with an annual rainfall during the growing season not greater than ten inches, farming can be carried on successfully, the only question remaining is, how the mistake could have been made of supposing that it required a greater amount. There is no doubt that cultivation adds greatly to the economy of the rainfall. The surface of the plains in an uncultivated con- dition is mainly bare, hard ground, but slightly protected by its covering of grasses. From such a surface the rain flows off freely, and an unusually large proportion of it finds its way into the streams, while a correspondingly small proportion sinks into the ground. The farmer, with plough and harrow, changes all this, and retains in the soil most of the rainfall. From year to year the supply in the soil increases, so that the subsoil becomes in time a reservoir from which the surface soil may draw in times of drought. Furthermore, the scanty vegetation offers little protection against evaporation, which is excessive upon the barren plains; but the ampler mantle which cultivation spreads over the soil prevents its moisture from disappearing in the atmosphere with so great rapidity. How much farther westward into the arid region can the farmer push? This is avery important question, affecting the value of millions of acres of land; for, if this land can be cultivated only by the aid of irrigation, nine-tenths of eastern Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico, together with western Dakota, Ne- braska, and Texas, must be given over to the cattle-men in per- petuity, as the streams are entirely insufficient for irrigation. A conclusive and satisfactory answer can be given only by the farmer HENRY GANNETT. WASHINGTON SCIENTIFIC NEWS. A Novel Way of Forming Alloys. —The Constituents of Sugar. — Rainfall in the Arid Regions. — Irish Myths and Folk-Tales. — Examining Fats. The Formation of Alloys. THE following is an abstract of a note read before the Philo- sophical Society by William Hallock, of the United States Geologi- cal Survey, Feb. 18, 1888 : — ; In the Berichte der chemzschen Gesellschaft, vol. xv. 1882, pp. 595-597, W. Spring describes the formation of alloys by submitting the filings of the constituent metals to high pressure, without ap- preciable rise in temperature. Wood's alloy of cadmium, tin, lead, and bismuth he produced by mixing proper weights of the filings of these metals, and subjecting them to a pressure of 7,000 at- mospheres. The block thus obtained was again filed up, and subjected to the same pressure. In this way a block of metal was produced which possessed the physical properties of ordinary Wood’s alloy, formed by melting the mixed constituents. W. Chandler Roberts repeated this experiment (Chemzcal News, vol. xlv. 1882, p. 231), and verified Mr. Spring’s results. In seeking an explanation of the above phenomenon satisfactory Marcu 2, 1888. ] to myself, I reasoned, that if at any time during the first compres- sion, the subsequent filing, or the second compression, anywhere throughout the mass, the constituent metals were in contact, at that point there would be a minute globule of the alloy, — a mole- cule of alloy, as it were. If, now, the temperature of the block, either during compression or subsequently, be raised to 70° C., then that molecule of alloy will fuse, and act as a solvent upon the sur- rounding metals till the whole mass is fused. If my idea was correct, I concluded that perhaps I could produce the result without pressure, giving more time and an appropriate temperature to the substance. The filed metals in the proper proportions were mixed, and packed into the bottom of a ‘sealed tube,’ suchas is used for blow- pipe work, using no greater pressure than could be conveniently exerted with a piece of wire, one-eighth of an inch in diameter, held between the thumb and finger. This tube was hung in the water-bath of the laboratory over night (eighteen hours), thus maintaining it at a temperature of from 98” to 100° C. On ex- amination, the filings had settled down considerably. The tube was then struck upon the table, jarring them down still more, and in an hour or two the whole was a molten globule. The experi- ment was repeated, using larger quantities packed in with a lead- pencil, and occasionally pressing the mass together with the pencil, producing twenty or thirty grains of alloy. Since then, tin and lead have been fused together at 200°C., tin melting only at 230° C.; also sodium and potassium at ordinary temperatures (20° C.), the first melting at about 90° C., and the latter at about 60°C. Thus I proposed the law, that az alloy can be formed out of the constztuents at a temperature above the melting-point of the alloy, although tt be far below that of any constztuent, wth no (appreciable) pressure. The extended verification of this law, as well as the electrical and thermal phenomena associated therewith, will be the subject of a work which I hope soon to undertake and carry through. The Chemistry of Sugar. The following is an abstract of some remarks made by Prof. H. W. Wiley, of the Agricultural Department, at the meeting of the Chemical Society, held Feb. 9. Referring to his recent work in Louisiana, he said, ‘When the cane is subjected to pressure analysis, itis found that the juice differs from that in the ordinary bagasse. There are two kinds of juice in the cane,—one stored in the cells, and the other in the circulation. The juice oozing from the end of the cane, at first, from compression, is like water, and has no sugar, so far as the taste goes.” Another subject of in- vestigation had to do with the determination of the total solids in the juices, which is a difficult problem. It was fully demonstrated that the saccharometers in use are not reliable, because they are mostly graduated to pure sugar solutions, while in the cane juices there is a mixture of various solutions. Professor Wiley described the process he used of drying to obtain the total solids, and his method of determining them by the addition of alcohol and the use of paper coils. He also said, in regard to the genesis of sucrose, that it had been proved beyond doubt that it is a direct formation, and not a secondary product. All the facts are against the old theory that starch is formed first, and the sugar from it. The sugar in the circulatory sap is never a starch sugar, and cannot have come from starch. It is found in the leaf, and is formed by the aid of chlorophyl. He also described the polarizing instrument, and said that many improvements have been made in it. Another point developed is that the amount of available sugar in the cane is greater than it has heretofore been supposed to be. In closing, he said that many of these points had been indicated in his previous work, but were emphasized by his recent investigations. Rainfall beyond the Mississippi. Gen. A. W. Greely, chief signal officer, gave to the Washington Philosophical Society, at its regular meeting, Feb. 18, the partial results of a study he is now engaged upon of the rainfall in the trans-Mississippi region. He had before him a number of maps upon which had been charted the observations which were the basis of his study, and referred to them constantly as he spoke. He said that the idea that there is any part of the West that is ab- solutely rainless is now a banished myth. During the past ten Be SCIENCE: IOr years the number of stations for observation has been doubled, so that there are, in twelve States and Territories, nearly one hundred stations ; and the observations, if reduced to a single one, would cover a period of nearly five thousand years. The result of chart- ing these observations has been to reduce very greatly the areas of small rainfall, The area in which the annual precipitation was supposed to be less than five inches has almost disappeared, and that in which the rainfall was put down at less than fifteen inches has been reduced by a quarter of a million of square miles since the Census map of 1880 was made. General Greely discussed the question of what constitutes an arid region, and said that he does not agree with Maj. J. W. Powell, who placed the minimum amount of precipitation necessary for successful agriculture at twenty inches per annum. He said that millions of bushels of wheat are raised every year where the rain- fall is less than twenty inches, and referred to the statistics of Dakota, where more than 2,600,000 bushels were raised in the two counties of Richland and Stutsman in 1885, and 1,500,000 in 1887, with an average rainfall of 13.7 to 15.1 inches. General Greely also mentioned the interesting fact, that, while the rainfall increases as the rivers which flow directly into the Gulf of Mexico or into the Pacific Ocean are followed up from their mouths, it increases with the distance from the mouths of such as empty into other bodies of water, like the Colorado. General Greely’s charts also prove that much of the rainfall in what has been known as the arid region, and where it was formerly supposed that the precipitation was five inches or less, was not re- ported. In some of these places the actual rainfall is as much as sixteen inches, and in one it is thirty-seven. This explains why water is found so abundantly in wells in some parts of southern California, where the annual rainfall has been reported as ten, twelve, and thirteen inches: the actual precipitation is twenty-four inches. 5 General Greely said that he had caused to be placed upon the charts the maximum and the minimum rainfall of the various stations, not expecting that they would indicate any thing, but that the curves were almost as regular as those on the annual maps. He explained that the small average amount of rainfall formerly reported was due in part to the fact that so large a number of stations had been situated along the line of the Pacific Railroad, which, seeking low gradients, had been built through a section of country in which the precipitation was small. He spoke also of the prevalent opinion that the rainfall in the West is increasing, and said that he thinks this opinion to be correct, and closed with the remark that it was not fair to treat that country on the basis of seasonable rains, since the larger portion of the precipitation took place during different months in different sections of the region. In the brief discussion which followed the address, Prof. G. K. Gilbert said that it was not safe to fix any given amount of rainfall as the minimum necessary for successful agriculture, without quali- fications. Very much depends upon the time when the rain falls, and the rapidity with which evaporation takes place. More rain is required in Arizona than in Dakota, and many unsuccessful agri- cultural experiments have been made in Utah near Camp Douglass, where the annual precipitation is as much as eighteen inches. Professor Fernow said that he had compared the amount of rain- fall during the five months of vegetation, in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Dodge City, and North Platte. It ranges from fifteen to seventeen inches, the largest amount of precipitation being at North Platte. There was no lack of rainfall at the eastern stations, but at North Platte it was impossible to raise acrop. He learned also from Utah that the amount of water needed to irrigate land there was less after two or three years than when it was first turned on. Prof. C. V. Riley spoke of the frequency and violence of the rain- fall as modifying in an important degree its effect. Folk-Lore of Ireland. The following is an abstract of a paper read before the Anthro- pological Society of Washington, Feb. 12, by Jeremiah Curtin :— For many years I have believed that there was a great stock of myths and folk-lore current among the people in Ireland, as well as an abundance of that class of facts which throw light on the history of the human mind, — facts which would be valuable to the scien- 102 tific world, and highly prized by this Anthropological Society of Washington. I know that there was a large body of manuscript Gaelic literature of considerable antiquity and of high value, espe- cially that portion of it devoted to mythology, heroic tales, chronicles, and law tracts. I hoped, also, there might still remain in the minds of the people of the remote districts of Ireland many idioms useful in explaining the language of the manuscripts, and many myths and tales that would supplement and strengthen the recorded mythol- ogy. I went to Ireland last year, therefore, for the purpose of set- tling this question by actual investigation, and my first step was to make the acquaintance of the few Gaelic scholars in Ireland, and examine the manuscripts preserved in Dublin. These manuscripts fill about two thousand volumes, are kept in the Royal Irish Academy and the University of Dublin, and are of various kinds, — histories, chronicles, treatises on law, medicine, astronomy, etc. Among them, and of chief interest to me, were the manuscripts containing the myths and heroic tales of the Gaelic people. These myths and tales, if printed, would fill about ten thousand quarto pages. This is the greatest collection of myths in Europe. It is perfectly unique, both in quality and quantity. Neither in ancient nor modern times had any nation on the main- land of Europe such a collection ; and O’Curry very truly said that the single ‘ Book of Leinster,’ if published to the world, would make the reputation of any nation. The ‘ Book of Leinster’ is but one of many books of its class, though it is the richest of all in contents; and the ‘ Book of Lein- ster’ is not yet accessible to the world, though it has, with three other volumes, been placed within the reach of a few Gaelic schol- ars in the form of some facszmz/e copies of the original manuscript, with all the contractions and abbreviations, of which several hun- dred were used by scribes in the days before printing. Some of the most important of the Gaelic manuscripts of myths and tales have come to us in unique copies, while a great many others of equal value, known by title or extract, have perished. Merely a wreck, a remnant of the old time, has been saved; but it is a wreck so ex~ tensive as to excite real wonder and thankfulness. It is a matter of deep interest, also, to the scientific investigator, to learn that the chronicles of the country, both lay and ecclesias- tical, especially the latter, bring to light a great many phases and forms of thought of pre-Christian times of which we have no record elsewhere. There is no church history in western Europe so val- uable in this respect as that of the Church in Ireland ; for the con- version of the people was voluntary, and the country at that time, and for some centuries later, was free from foreign pressure of every description. All of the ancient beliefs and practices that could pos- bly be permitted, were permitted. Some of these lived on parallel with the Church, and others were incorporated into it. After a brief visit in Dublin, where I found assistance, and a most agreeable hospitality from the members of the Royal Irish Academy, the University of Dublin, and the two Gaelic societies, I set out to visit remote places inthe west. Without entering into any detailed account, I may state that I visited some of the characteristic and se- cluded parts of the west coast, and took down personally a large body of myths and stories, some very long, others not so long. This collection of materials is sufficient to fill a couple of twelve- mo volumes, and will give some idea of what yet remains in the Celtic mind of Ireland. It is, however, but a small part of that mental treasure still in possession of the people. One of the largest and finest groups of Gaelic myths is the Ossi- anic, or myths of Fin MacCumhal and the Fenians of Erin. Fin has his immediate personal attendants. He and they possess fixed and well-determined characters, and their names and exploits are familiar to all who have heard the tales of the Fenians of Erin. There are no stories more popular, and they are interlaced with a great number of other important myths of various descriptions. Every place in the land has witnessed the activity with which Fin and his men struggled with every manner of obstacle, and fought with every kind of foe. Fin and Oisin, according to the stories, were born in a great many places in Ireland. Scotland is as full of their activity and birthplaces. Glencoe, the scene of the celebrated massacre, is a birthplace of Oisin. The account given of how these Fenian or Ossianic stories were preserved is remarkable enough. The authorship of them all is attributed to Oisin, the son of Fin SCIENCE. [Vot. XI. No. 265 MacCumhal, who told them to St. Patrick. St. Patrick had them carefully written down ; but he found them so agreeable and enter- taining, as well as so numerous, that he said people would neglect their work and do nothing but listen to these stories, so he destroyed two-thirds of what was told him by Oisin. From the remaining one- third come all the tales of the Fenians now current in Ireland and Scotland. In one of the stories which I collected is a complete ac- count of how Oisin came back from Tir nan Og (the land of youth), after he had been there three hundred years, and told them to St. Patrick. The time is coming when mythology may become a science, if scholars will work to that end, but mythology is far from being a science yet. There are many theories and loose statements current about mythology, —‘ disease of language,’ ‘sun myths,’ ‘serpent myths,’ etc., — but there is no science in allthis. It is fancy, guess- work, efforts of men dealing with insufficient and unsatisfactory materials, collected, in many cases, by incompetent hands or by persons who tamper with materials for the purpose of improving them, or fitting them to some theory. There is probably no more striking or interesting case of error than that of Max Miiller, who has founded a whole theory of myth- ology on what he calls a ‘ disease of language.’ Now, Max Miiller’s ‘disease of language’ is merely an incident in the history of myth- ology, instead of being, as he makes it, the great central and ger- minal factor, the parent instead of attendant of mythology. Miil- ler’s error is one that could never have been made by a man having proper and sufficient materials at hand from mythologies still intact. The things we need, above all, at present, to advance mythology on the way to becoming a science, are facts, and facts in mythology are well-preserved myths. These we need in great number, and in all the variants attainable in each linguistic stock of people. Among the different branches of the Aryan race in Europe, there is none, as I have already stated, having so extensive and well- preserved a mythology as the people of Ireland. This mythology is to be found in two places, —in Gaelic manuscript, and in the minds of the people of the more secluded parts of the island. Only very small portions of the Gaelic manuscripts have been translated, and still smaller portions published ; so that practically this body of material for science is unknown to the world. The work of utilizing it remains to be done. Now, it will be found that the manuscript material can never be properly translated and explained without a knowledge of the words and idioms of the language, as. well as the ideas and myths that are in the minds of the Gaelic- speaking people of Ireland. The Qualities of Fats. The chemist and microscopist of the Department of Agriculture are engaged in an examination of samples of the lard of commerce, for the purpose of determining its constituents, and also of discov- ering the best tests for adulteration. Professor Wiley has employed all of the ordinary tests, but gets the best results from one suggested by an Italian chemist, Bechi, in which nitrate of silver is used. Cottonseed-oil, when brought in contact with nitrate of silver, re- duces the latter to a metallic state. Professor Wiley has also begun an interesting series of experiments to determine the refraction of different oily substances. The instrument used is Abbé's refrac- tometer, which shows the index of refraction upon a scale upon its side. There is no literature on this subject, and the tables which Professor Wiley proposes to make will be an interesting contribu- tion to the present knowledge of the qualities of fats. X. Washington, D.C., March xr. HEALTH MATTERS. Transmission of Infection by Rags. THE ‘Eighteenth Annual Report of the State Board of Health of Massachusetts ’ contains a valuable report by Dr. C. F. Withington, who was requested by the board to investigate the question of the transmission of infectious diseases by means of rags. Dr. Withing- ton’s report is very full and complete, and is a very fair and un- biassed statement of the facts as we understand them. His con- clusions are as follows :— I, Small-pox has been transmitted through the medium of rags in a certain number of cases, small in proportion to the whole number Marcu 2, 1888.] of persons who handle rags, but absolutely numerous enough to show that unvaccinated workers in rags are exposed to an actual, if not imminent, danger of infection from this source. 2. The source of this infection is more frequently domestic than foreign rags, though the disease has been caused by the latter. This possibility of infection through imported rags accords with what is known of the tenacity of life of the variolous poison. 3. Among the rarer means whereby cholera is transmitted are textile fabrics infected with choleraic discharges. There is evidence that clothing from cholera patients, and possibly clothing merely packed in an infected locality, has, when transported to a distance and there unpacked, caused the disease in those who have handled it, thus starting a fresh cholera focus. A proper distinction exists between clothing, on the one hand, recently removed from the body, and again, not long after, put on to the body; and rags, on the other hand, which, if transported to this country, are certain to have undergone a carefully discriminative sorting and drying, and - to have spent a considerable time in warehouse and on ship- board. 4. The statement that cholera has been transmitted by paper- rags rests upon a solitary case, of which the details are not com- plete, and on the reliability of which some of the highest authorities on cholera have cast doubt. If the case be accepted, it is one of infection by domestic rags, carried only fifty miles from their place of collection. 5. An epidemic affection, known as ‘ rag-sorters’ disease,’ appears to have broken out on three or four occasions in European paper- mills. It was probably, though not certainly, the disease called ‘anthrax.’ 6. Authenticated instances are not to be found in which the other infectious diseases—typhus and typhoid fevers, scarlet-fever, measles, and diphtheria—have been transmitted through rags; though it is to be said that such evidence, supposing the fact to exist, would be very difficult to get. Neither do the mortality tables, as shown by registration reports, show a preponderance of deaths from these diseases in the paper-making towns. 7. There is no evidence to show that rag-sorters as a class are, except for occasional cases of small-pox and a certain amount of pulmonary irritation from the dust of improperly ventilated rooms, less healthy than other persons engaged in in-door manual occupa- tions. 8. Despite the fact that cholera is not known to have ever been conveyed to this or any other country in foreign-baled rags, it is a reasonable precaution to prohibit the landing in any United States port of rags gathered in epidemically infected localities, in view of the possibility that among such rags there may have been thrown articles of infected clothing which have not been sufficiently dried and aired, or have not occupied enough time in their transportation to be devoid of danger. Such prohibitions should be limited to the time and place of epidemic infection ; but all necessary precautions should be taken to make sure that rags shipped from a healthy port were not gathered or baled in an infected place. g. As the only safeguard against the occurrence of small-pox among operatives, paper-mill owners, whether ‘incorporated com- panies’ within the purview of the statute or not, should make evi- dence of successful vaccination an absolute prerequisite to the em- ployment of any person in the mill, and a re-vaccination at regular intervals (not merely on the occurrence of an epidemic in the neigh- borhood) a condition of being retained in their employ. to. As the contagion of small-pox, phthisis, and perhaps other diseases, is capable of being inspired when the particles carrying it are suspended in the air in the form of dust; and as dust, even when it carries no contagion, is irritating to the respiratory pas- sages, — every mill should have, in connection with each table in the rag-room and in the dusting-room, a ventilating system, pref- erably consisting of flues connected with an exhaust-fan, so that the dust, as fast as it is disengaged, may be withdrawn from the air. The success which attends the working of such an apparatus, in some mills where it is in use, is a sufficient warrant for its gen- eral introduction. 11. A law similar to that of Great Britain (Section 125 of the Public Health Act of 1875), imposing a penalty on the selling or giving-away of infected rags from persons sick with any dangerous SCIENCE. 103 disease, seems desirable. Public institutions and private house- holders should be obliged (and not, as at present, simply advised) to insure the disinfection of the more valuable articles, and the de- struction by fire of all rags, that have been thus exposed. 12. As domestic rags comprise more than half those used, and represent a still larger proportion of the infection likely to be car- ried, it follows that they should participate in whatever disinfection is thought necessary. This fact points to the paper-mill as the proper place for making such disinfection. The sulphur process would doubtless afford the least embarrassment to the manu- facturer ; the bales being opened in a tightly closed room, the rags being spread on racks, and sulphur burned in the preportion of two pounds to each one thousand cubic feet of space. The in- troduction of steam under pressure, the rags being similarly dis- posed, would be the most effective disinfection possible, but would dampen the rags to their injury, unless the moisture were dried out at once with a current of hot air. ELECTRICAL BULLET-PROBE. — At a recent meeting of the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. Girdner of New York ex- hibited his telephonic bullet-probe. The interesting feature of this probe is that it is operated by a current of electricity extracted from the body of the patient himself, in whom it is desired to locate a metallic missile. The construction of this probe is as follows: to each of the two terminals of a telephone-receiver, an insulated flex- ible wire about four feet long is connected. At the free end of one of these wires a hollow, bulbous piece of steel is attached. At the free end of the other wire is a suitable handle in which a probe may be placed, and held by a clamp-screw. The internal arrangement of the handleis such that a perfect electrical contact exists between the end of the probe and that of the wire which terminates in the handle: the same is true for the end of the other wire and the steel bulb. When acurrent of electricity is passed through the coil in the receiver by means of the bulb and the probe, each time that the current is made and broken a clicking or rasping sound is heard in the receiver held to the ear. All sounds are shut out except that heard when the bullet is touched; and the apparatus is so con- structed that both hands are left free. In describing the application of this probe, Dr. Girdner mentioned a case seen in practice, in which a musket-ball had lain between the bones of the leg for twenty-two years. When an ordinary probe was passed, hard sub- stances could be felt in many places, but it could not be told whether they were bone or bullet. The porcelain probe, invented by the distinguished French surgeon, Nélaton, was of no use, as the bullet was so covered by a thick crust of salts of lead as not to be marked when it was rubbed against the bullet. When the telephon- ic probe was passed, no response came so long as bone and other tissues were touched; but, the moment the probe came in contact with the bullet, a clicking and rasping sound was heard in the tele- phone. During this test the steel bulb was held in the patient’s mouth. A more detailed description of the probe, with illustrations, may be found in the Vew York Medical Record of Feb. 4, 1888. MEDICAL COLLEGES IN THE UNITED STATES. — The last an- nual report of the State Board of Health of Illinois contains some very interesting statistics in reference to medical education in the United States. Since 1886 there have been two new medical colleges established, and two have ceased to exist. There are now 114 colleges which exact an educational requirement of intending ma- triculates, as against 45 formerly, there being no change in this respect from the previous year ; 43 colleges now exact attendance upon three or more courses of lectures, as against 22 formerly, — being a gain of two over 1886, —and 57 others make provision for a three or four years’ graded course. Hygiene in now taught in 114, and medical jurisprudence in 112 colleges, as against 42 and 61 respectively prior to 1883. There is an increase in the average of lecture-terms from 23.5 weeks to 24.9 weeks during this period ; and 114 colleges now have terms of five months or over, and 63 have terms of six months or over, as compared with ro1 and 42 respectively. There is only one medical college that has a course less than twenty weeks, the Medical College of Georgia. In 1882— 83, out of every 1,000 matriculates, 322 were graduated, taking both the United States and Canada and all schools of practice into the account. In 1886-87 only 294 out of every 1,000 matriculates 104 Ss CINEINC1E, were graduated. In the United States alone, in 1882-83, out of every 1,000 matriculates, '331 were graduated, while in 1886-87 only 305 out of every 1,000 matriculates were graduated. THE FUTURE OF MEDICAL GRADUATES.— Of some one thousand graduates from collegiate institutions, says the Paczfic Record, seventy-five only make for themselves a name and promi- nence in their calling. About two hundred, having business quali- fications, become rich by their practice and by judicious invest- ‘ments. Four hundred abandon, in whole or in part, their profession for some more lucrative business; andthe balance struggle with mediocre ability for a bare subsistence, anda wearying effort to keep up an appearance before the people. ALCOHOL AND FEVERS. — Dr. Kretzschmar of Brooklyn read a paper at the recent meeting in Albany of the New York Medical Society, on the use of alcohol in certain forms of fever. He be- lieved that in some diseases alcohol, if properly administered, was not only instrumental in prolonging life, but was frequently a most potent factor in preserving it. Alcohol possesses the qualities of both food and medicine. It is one of the best antiseptics, and the most reliable remedy we have in the treatment of diphtheria. He regarded alcohol as beneficial in the treatment of phthisis, espe- cially when the temperature of the patient was increased. In the discussion which followed, Dr. Castle advised that stimulants be kept in several small bottles, as, when exposed to the air, they lost valuable medicinal properties. BOVINE TUBERCULOSIS. — Dr. Brush of Mount Vernon discussed at the Albany meeting the subject of bovine tuberculosis. Of all do- mesticated animals, the bovines are the most subject to tuberculosis. Five per cent of the cattle in England are affected with tuberculosis, and it is said that twenty per cent of the cattle in some of the thoroughbred Jersey herds in the Northern States are similarly affected. He believed that more human beings were not infected, because the normal temperature of the human race was so much lower than that of the bovine, — 98.5°F.in the one, and ror® to 103° F. in the other; this latter temperature being necessary for the growth of the germ of the disease. The cultivation of tuberculosis in animals confirms this view, as resistance to the dis- ease decreased as the normal temperature of the animal increased. Thus, in the dog, resistance was good, while in the common fowl it was #27. Dr. Brush thought that the Federal Government would do better to spend its money in the investigation and suppression of this disease, than to appropriate five hundred thousand dollars to stamp out pleuro-pneumonia, which did not affect the human race. He believed, that, if bovine tuberculosis were eradicated, it would soon become eliminated from the human race, and he thought that physicians should strive to procure laws which would accom- plish this. ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. Secondary Batteries. Ir has been for many years the dream of inventors to perfect some apparatus by which energy could be stored, to be used when occasion required. The secondary battery accomplishes this better than any thing else that has been invented, but it has limitations and defects that it is well to point out. The two principal uses, with a great number of minor applica- tions, to which secondary batteries can be put at present, are the distribution of energy for electric lighting, and their use in driving street-cars. As for the first of these, it is well known that the direct system of constant potential distribution cannot be employed at any considerable distance from the central station, owing to the heavy investment in copper necessary. If storage-batteries could be eco- nomically used, however, they could be distributed at different points through the district, to be lighted and charged by a high potential current, allowing comparatively small conductors to be used, and employing the electric plant during the day, when it would otherwise be idle. The advantages for street-car work are apparent: each car carries within itself the energy necessary for running it; a break-down of one car does not affect the rest of the system. Compared with other electrical systems, the advantages are, that it can be used in crowded streets with no danger from high potential currents ; and [Vo.. XI. No. 265 where a large number of cars are used, it is much simpler than any other plan. Compared with cables, it gives a greater economy of power, a less first cost, and the impossibility of one accident dis- abling the whole line. The disadvantages of secondary batteries are the cost, the waste of energy, the deterioration, and the weight for a given capacity and rate of discharge. The type of storage-cell most generally in use is some modifica- tion of the Faure cell, generally of the Faure-Sellon-Volkmar type. In it the plates are made of cast lead supports or ‘ grids,’ into which is pasted a mixture of red lead and sulphuric acid. The ‘grid’ has in it square hour-glass shaped holes, the contraction in the middle being intended to prevent the active material from falling out. The plates pasted with red lead are put into dilute sulphuric acid, alter- nate plates are connected together, and an electric current is sent between the two sets, changing them into pure lead and lead per- oxide. Plates thus ‘formed’ are put into cells with dilute sulphuric acid, a number of lead or negative plates, and peroxide or positive plates, in each cell. This is, very briefly, the general method of manufacture. Now, suppose we have one of these cells fully charged, —all of the positive plate peroxide, all of the negative plate lead, —and dis- charge it through a resistance. At first the electro-motive force is over 2 volts. This will rapidly run down to about 1.95 to 2 volts, where it will remain constant (provided we do not discharge the cell too fast) for a considerable time, when it will begin to fall, and, if we continue the discharge, it will finally become zero. If, now, the plates be analyzed, it will be found that the positive plate has in it peroxide and sulphate of lead, the latter perhaps fifteen to twenty per cent of the whole active material. The negative plate will consist of pure lead and sulphate. If we charge the cell, the plates will be changed to pure lead and peroxide again, the electro- motive force will gradually rise to 2.25 volts, and, when the charge is nearly complete, oxygen will be given off from the positive plate. There are two very important things to be noticed. If we charge and discharge the cell a number of times, we will find that the en- ergy we get out of the cell is less than the energy we put in by an amount that varies with the rate of discharge, the efficiency being less as the discharge rate is greater: the average efficiency for the present storage-cell is something near seventy per cent. Another point even more important than the first is, that, if we greatly in- crease the discharge rate, the electro-motive force of the cell will fall rapidly ; and if we persist in this, the plates will corrode and buckle, and the plugs of active material will fall out of the holes in the plates. There is one more disadvantage besides these, and that is the fact that the life of the cell, especially that of the positive plates, is limited. Under favorable conditions, the positive plates will last, on the average, two years: the negative plates will last much longer. For lighting, the most important disadvantages are the cost, the loss of energy, and the deterioration. The fact that the cells can- not be discharged at more than a certain rate does not greatly affect their usefulness in ordinary cases. And storage-batteries have reached such a state of development that it is safe to say, that, if they were sold and repaired at reasonable prices, they would have at once a great field of usefulness for electric lighting, even with their present defects. The principal cost of a storage-celi is for material: the cost of the labor is comparatively small, and, when the plates have given out, at least a part of the material is left. But for traction-work the greatest disadvantage is in the slow discharge rate permissible. At present from three thousand to four thousand pounds of storage-batteries are required to drive an ordinary car, the storage capacity being enough for a run of from forty to sixty miles. This great weight increases the power neces- sary to run the car, the wear of the track, and the deterioration of the car. Besides, it means a considerable first investment, and a large battery to be kept in repair. If we could discharge the bat- tery at any rate we wished, we could make a round trip with seven hundred and fifty to one thousand pounds of battery. We would have to charge our batteries oftener, of course, but we would greatly decrease our items of first cost, depreciation, wear of road-bed and cars, and even of power expended. It has been variously estimated that the difference of expense be- Marcw 2, 1888. | tween horses and the storage-battery, including every thing but the deterioration of the battery, is from one to three dollars per car per day in favor of the battery. Taking a well-known form of battery as a type, supposing fifty per cent over the cost of manufacture is charged for the cells, and estimating the cost of horse-power for one of the New York street-railways: the difference of cost of the two systems is roughly two dollars and a half per car per day. Now, whether the repairs of the battery will cost this much is a matter that only experience can settle, but on roads where the grades are slight it is very probable that the batteries will be most economical. The matter at present stands thus: only about fourteen per cent of the possible storage capacity of storage-cells is utilized; their discharge rate is limited, so that even this comparatively small capacity is great in comparison to it; the cells deteriorate, so that a large item of expense is in repairs; the efficiency of the cells is not greater than seventy per cent. Even with these disadvantages, storage-batteries can be largely applied for lighting and traction- work. It seems impossible, with the number of investigators work- ing on the subject and the great possibility of improvement, that the next few years will not see a great increase in the economy, storage capacity, and discharge rate of storage-cells; and a very moderate increase in any of these, especially the latter, will throw the balance decidedly in their favor for traction-work. For lighting, their field is equally extended. PRIMARY AND SECONDARY CURRENTS IN INDUCTION-COILS’ — The relations between the primary and the induced secondary currents in induction-coils have been investigated mathematically by several writers, the clearest and most satisfactory treatment be- ing probably that of Mascart and Joubert. Since the experiments of Ewing on the magnetization of iron, it has been clear, not only that the assumptions hitherto made have not accurately represented the facts, but that any rigorous mathematical treatment would, with our present knowledge, be impossible. The work of Prof. Galileo Ferraris in this connection is important as showing the ex- tent of the modification that can take place. He has determined experimentally the difference of phase between the primary and secondary currents in an old-type Gaulard and Gibbs transformer, and, comparing them with theoretical deductions of his own, finds the agreement satisfactory. “The objections to his work seem to be that the apparatus he experimented on is. obsolete, and is not of the type at present universally used; the old transformers having an open magnetic circuit, while now the magnetic circuit is always closed. The work is important, however, as showing the inade- quacy of the at present accepted treatment. ETHNOLOGY. Notes on the Kwakiool of Vancouver Island. Dr. GEORGE M. DAWSON gives in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Canada for 1887 a very interesting sketch of the Kwakiool, a people inhabiting the central part of the coast of Brit- ish Columbia. He describes the numerous tribes of this nation and their several villages, but the most interesting part of the paper is a description of their mode of life, traditions, and language. They live in large wooden houses, the front of which is painted with de- signs representing the fabulous thunder-bird, whales, snakes, or salmon, while the posts and beams supporting the roof are carved in similar forms. The children are for a long time kept tied into the cradle. When they leave it, the cradle and the bedding must be deposited at a place reserved for this purpose. Then a great festival is celebrated, and the child is given a name. On this occasion the father has to give away a great part of his property. Dawson gives very valuable information on this giving-away of property, which was well known to be practised by the tribes of the north-west coast, but the meaning of which was not clearly under- stood. He says, — “The rules governing the fotlatch (as this festival is called in the Chinook jargon) and its attendant ceremonies have grown to be so complicated that even those persons most familiar with the natives can scarcely follow it in all its details, and it is sometimes difficult for the natives themselves to decide certain points. The custom was formerly almost entirely confined to the recognized chiefs, but of late years it has extended to the people generally, and become very SCIEN CE 105 much commoner than before. It is regarded as a means of acquir- ing and maintaining prestige and power, but it has nowadays spread to all classes of the community, and become the recognized mode of attaining social rank and respect. “ Asa particular instance of the custom, let us suppose that a man of one tribe has collected together as his own, or obtained control of, say, five hundred blankets, and wishes to make a fof- latch to some other tribe. He goes to its village, and makes known his intention of distributing a thousand blankets at a certain date. He begins by lending out his.stock of five hundred blankets, giving larger numbers to those who are well off. This loan is reckoned a debt of honor, to be paid, with interest, at the proper time. It is usual to return two blankets for every one borrowed. Thus the stranger obtains the thousand blankets for his fotatch, which, with the ac- companiment of much bombastic speech-making and excitement, are distributed in exact proportion to the social position of those taking part.” Those who receive presents at such a festival become debtors of the man who gives the feast. These feasts are celebrated at a mar- riage ceremony or when a man wishes to take a new name. In connection with the remarks on the fotlatch, Dawson refers to the actual condition of this people, and emphasizes the fact that the best way to civilize them will be the establishment of industries among them. The report on the legends of the people is of great interest, and so is the vocabulary of about seven hundred words, which is of great importance, as our knowledge of that language is very scanty. BOOK-REVIEWS. Great Waterfalls, Cataracts, and Geysers. By JOHN GIBSON. New York, T. Nelson & Sons. 16°. $1.25. Chips from the Earth's Crust. By JOHN GIBSON. New York, T. Nelson & Sons. 16°. $1.25. THESE two publications present in a readable form certain phe- nomena of physical geography; theformer treating of famous cata- racts and geysers, the latter with a variety of geological phenome- na such as obtrude themselves upon the attention of the reading public. The book on waterfalls and geysers is well illustrated, and the author has described almost exclusively those cataracts of which he was able to givean illustration. The papers of which the ‘ Chips from the Earth’s Crust’ consist were originally contributions to the Scotsman newspaper. Eruptions of volcanoes, great land-slides, tornadoes, discoveries of new gold-fields, the fall of a meteor, earth- quakes, and similar phenomena, have given occasion to writing these papers; and we think the author has well accomplished his task to write in an agreeable form to such people as have no time and occasion for systematic study, but want to know what has been discovered regarding the history of the earth and the cause and true character of current geological events. The book contains a considerable number of illustrations. Mineral Resources of the United States. Washington, Government. 8°. By Davip T. Day. THE annual report on the mineral resources of the United States for the year 1886, compiled in the Division of Mining Statistics and Technology of the United States Geological Survey, has just been issued. We find in this volume, which is the fourth of the series, a minute and exhaustive report on the production and economic value of minerals in the United States: The arrangement is according to materials, and under each heading the total production, re- cently opened mines, technical improvements, imports and exports, are treated. The statistical tables of the preceding volumes have been brought forward to the close of 1886. Besides the report on the annual production, the volume contains a brief and interesting review on the American iron industry, from its beginning in 1619 to 1886, by James M. Swank, and an elaborate paper on the iron ores east of the Mississippi River, by John Birkinbine, to which are added analyses of foreign iron ores smelted in this country. The volume is very exhaustive, not only treating of metals, coal, petro- leum, etc., but giving also a review of the production of structural materials, fertilizers, precious stones (the last by George F. Kunz) ; in short, of all minerals of any economic value. 106 The Soul, or Rational Psychology. By EMANUEL SWEDENBORG. Tr. by Frank Sewall. New York, New Church Board of Publ. Bhoa) 9 E33 THE original of this work is in Latin, and it remained in manu- script for a century before it was published; and now, after some forty years more, we have a translation of it in English. Itis hard to see, however, what useful purpose the book can be made to serve. It is true that the present interest in psychological studies is great, and men engaged in them are glad to receive help from any quarter. But they will not get any help from Sweden- borg, owing to the unscientific character of his work. Every one, whether he knows much of Swedenborg or not, has heard of him as a mystic and as the founder ofa religioussect. Now, mysticism, as Mill somewhere remarks, consists in attributing outward reality to the creations of our own fancy; and that this is the method of Swedenborg, a few examples of his work will show. He assumes that we possess a lower mind or azzmus, a rational mind or mezs, and a soul or anzia, and these are perpetually spoken of by him as if they were distinct entities. Precisely how he does regard them it is impossible to say, for his expression is obscure; but the following passage from the appendix to the present work, and which is taken from another of his treatises, presents his doctrine briefly in his own words: “The first of the organs is the spirituous fluid, or soul, whose office it is to represent the universe, to have in- tuition of ends, to be conscious, and principally to determine. The next organ under the soul is the mind, whose office it is to under- stand, to think, and to will. The third in order is the azzmus, whose office it is to conceive, to imagine, and to desire” (p. 357). Besides all these ‘organs,’ he speaks of something which he calls the ‘pure intellect,’ his description of which is so obscure that we confess ourselves unable to understand what he means by the term. The translator of the work thinks it is entitled to credit for recog- nizing the part played by the brain and the body generally in con- nection with mental phenomena; but, unfortunately for this view, Swedenborg’s anatomy and physiology are quite as fantastic as his psychology. Thus, at the very beginning of his book, he under- takes to explain ‘the successive formation of the blood-vessels from the simple fibre,” and he begins as follows : — “The simplest fibre is the form of forms, or that which forms the other fibres succeeding in order. The simplest fibre by its circum- flexion forms a certain perpetually spiral surface, or membrane, which is itself the second, the medullary or nervous fibre of the body, and is simply a little channel constructed from the simplest fibre, but, together with the fluid which permeates it, constituting a fibre. . . . This fibre, when it falls into the provinces of the body, again forms a kind of little gland not unlike the cortical, from which proceeds the bodily fibre, and this forms the little tunic which in- folds the arterial vessels” (p. 3). And there is much more of the same sort. Now, those who believe Swedenborg to have been a divinely inspired teacher may perhaps accept such doctrines as these and such methods as their author employs; but to other per- sons his book will be chiefly interesting as an example of the aber- rations of the human intellect. Childhood: zts Care and Culture. By MARY ALLEN WEST. Chicago, Woman’s Temp. Publ. Assoc. 8°. IN estimating the value of such a work as this, the public for which it is intended is a prime consideration. The scientific man will find little in it likely to attract him, and what there is he can find in a better shape elsewhere. But the majority of mankind are not of a scientific turn of mind, and, as they have the practicaj problem of educating their own children before them, it is both natural ,and advisable that they should have prepared for them a general treatise on the nature of childhood, answering a want anal- ogous to that satisfied by works on home medicine. The spirit in which such works are written is always a reflex of the movement appealing most strongly to the leaders of culture. It is not diffi- cult to trace in this large volume the influence of new and to agreat extent better views upon such questions as the moral training of che young by means of the every-day usages of society, the proper dressing of children, the dangers surrounding them at critical stages in their development, and so on. Some rather objectionable features that are also new have likewise found their way into the SGHENGE: [Vor. XI. No. 265 work. Chief among these is the early acquaintance of children with the dangers of alcohol, —a topic ridiculously overdrawn. In brief, this handbook aims to put together, in a style apt to attract the uninformed reader, the views of childhood now considered as most satisfactory; taking much from the development known as ‘infant psychology,’ piecing in somewhat of child-lore and anthro- pology, and systematizing much of such information as is often found in a magazine like Babyhood. In doing this there are many mistakes, some serious and some not; but, on the whole, the work leaves one with the impression that it is more remarkable that it is not less satisfactorily performed than that it is not more so. The chief characteristic that marks off such a treatise from a scientific one, is that the former brings in so much irrelevant matter: it is not false, not uninteresting, but out of place. However, there is un- doubtedly a taste for works of this kind, and we ought to be satis- fied if they are no worse than this. Life of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. By his son, EDWARD MINER GALLAUDET. New York, Holt. 12°. THIS book is an interesting account of a worthy and useful man. It is written with filial reverence and affection, but, so faras we can judge, without undue bias ; and the story is well told. Mr. T. H. Gallaudet was the founder of deaf-mute instruction in America, and the principal interest of his biography arises from this fact. Few among the charitable or educational improvements of modern times are more important than that which has enabled persons without the sense of hearing, to communicate with their fellow-men ; and, though Mr. Gallaudet was not the inventor of the system, he was the principal agent in introducing it into this country. It was during the second decade of this century that he became interested in the subject, while he was a theological student at Andover, and, at the request of a number of other persons who became interested with him, he abandoned the idea of entering the ministry, and started for London to learn the methods in use in the school for deaf-mutes established there. To his surprise, however, he found that the teaching of deaf-mutes in England was a virtual monopoly in the hands of a certain family, the members of which refused to allow him to learn the system, lest their interest should thereby suffer. After trying for some time in vain to induce them to change their mind, or to obtain any means whatever of learning their sys- tem of teaching, he went to Paris, where he readily obtained access to the information he wanted at the Royal School for Deaf-Mutes. Returning as soon as he had qualified himself, he opened the first school of the kind in this country at Hartford, Conn., in 1817, and continued for many years to preside over it as its principal. His duties, however, were somewhat arduous, and his relations with the directors were not always harmonious; and after a while he re- signed his position. During the rest of his life he was engaged in various charitable and educational enterprises. He married one of his own deaf-mute pupils, and there is abundant evidence in these pages that she became an excellent wife and mother. His son, the author of this biography, is continuing his father’s work, being now the president of the National College for Deaf-Mutes in Washing- ton. During the present year the deaf-mutes of the country will erect a statue of the elder Gallaudet on the grounds of the college at Washington, — a tribute to his memory that is well deserved. An Explanatory Digest of Professor Fawcett’s ‘Manual of Polzt- zcal Economy. By CYRIL A. WATERS. New York, Mac- millan. 12°. 70 cents. THIS little book is intended chiefly for those students who are preparing for examination in Professor Fawcett’s work in the Eng- lish schools and colleges, and for this purpose it seems to be well adapted. It fills some eighty pages, and gives an excellent summery of the original work in clear and intelligible language, the more important doctrines and arguments being given in many cases very nearly in Professor Fawcett’s own words. The original work is in many respects one of the best of the shorter treatises on the science, but it contains some doctrines that are not accepted now by the majority of thinkers, that of the wages fund being the most impor- tant. Mr. Waters objects occasionally to some of Fawcett’s views, and indicates one or two deficiencies in the professor’s work; but he says nothing on the subject of the wages fund. Fawcett’s Marcu 2, 1888.] work may be regarded as a briefer presentation of the doctrines taught by Mill, and hence this digest will serve to a certain extent as a summary of Mill’s work also. What Shall we Talk About? 16°. $r. THIS is one of the old-style educational books, in which some parents or grand-parents entertain a party of children with wise and instructive stories and adventures. The present volume treats in this style a great variety of subjects referring to natural science. Descriptions of animal life, and anecdotes, come in fora large share of the space; but, besides, astronomical and physical phenomena are explained. We fear that some of the subjects treated, as well as the style of the book, are quite beyond the grasp of children as young as those for whom it is intended. The treatise on the physi- cal properties of air on p. 139, to point out one instance, cannot be understood by children. The author neglects throughout the book to stimulate the power of observation, and gives theories instead. Besides, the cursory way in which phenomena having no connec- tion whatever are treated without order and regularity must be rejected from an educational standpoint, as it promotes superficial- ness. A Text-Book of Algebra. By W.S.ALDIS. Oxford, Clarendon Pr. 12°. $1.90. THE present work is in its general plan similar to that of Pro- fessor Chrystol, published in 1886. While containing many of the new methods and conceptions which render the latter work so valuable, Aldis’s work is less exhaustive than Chrystols’, and does not depart so far from the ordinary text-books in general use as Chrystols’ does. On this account it is better suited to teachers and students familiar with the rudiments of algebra. Indeed, the book is one which should be in the hands of every mathematical teacher in a high school, academy, or college in the country. It is only by the help of such works as the present one that mathematical education can be raised to a higher standard than it at present possesses. The peculiar excellences of the book are found in the two open- ing chapters, which together occupy fifty-one pages. The book begins with a thorough discussion of arithmetical ideas. The pro- cess of counting leads to the idea of positive integers ; thence addi- tion, and its inverse operation subtraction, arise; next come mul- tiplication, and its inverse division. By division we are led to the idea of fractions. Chapter II. is devoted to algebraic notation. By subtraction we are led to the idea of negative numbers. The laws governing such numbers are fully discussed and carefully illustrated. At the end of the second chapter is introduced a brief treatment of vector quantities: this is introduced simply to show the student that “algebra is something very much wider in its scope than a mere substitution of letters for numbers to aid in the solution of general arithmetical problems.” These words are the author’s own. The remainder of the book differs little from the well-known text-book of Todhunter. The last chapter, on choice, might have been extended with advantage. The book is marred by clumsy and faulty language. Many of the definitions lack precision, and many terms are introduced with- out definition. Some words are made to have two inconsistent meanings. New York, T. Nelson & Sons. NOTES AND NEWS. THE first number of the Jxternatzonales Archiv fiir Ethno- graphize has just been issued. The new journal is edited by J. D. E. Schmeltz, curator of the National Ethnographical Museum at Leyden. It is novel in plan, being exclusively devoted to the dis- cussion of the ethnographic specimens collected among the various tribes and races. The journal will make accessible by illustrations the collections deposited in the various museums of the world. ’ The text will contain papers in French, English, German, and Dutch, according to the choice of the author. The subjects of the papers will be the ethnographical results of expeditions, descrip- tions of newly discovered ethnographical objects, and studies of SCIENCE. 107 collections. Objects the origin of which is doubtful will be figured and discussed. The plan of the journal includes also the study of prehistoric remains. As the material for ethnographical studies is so widely scattered in private and public collections, the establish- ment of such a journal must be welcomed by all students of the science of man. In order to make it the centre of such studies, a number of co-editors in various countries contribute to the journal. The first number shows that the journal will be of the greatest value. Three beautiful chromolithographic plates and a number of cuts illustrate the text. The plates show a large collection of New Guinea arrows, to illustrate a paper by Dr. L. Serrurier, in which the various forms of arrows of this large island are ably discussed, and the principal object of which is to show that only a large col- lection will enable us to determine the typical forms of ethno- graphical objects, and to draw reliable conclusions. The third plate is devoted to the mandaus, the sword of the Dayak, the manufacture and ornaments of which are described in detail by S. W. Tromp. This paper is illustrated by a series of cuts showing the ornaments and various forms of handles. The rest of the paper is taken up by notes on recent additions to collections, a biblio- graphical review, and a discussion of objects of doubtful origin. The periodical is to appear bimonthly, and each number will con- tain about twenty-four pages text in quarto, and three chromo- lithographs. The journal is published by O. W. M. Trap, Leyden, — The most interesting feature of the twenty-first report of the trustees of the Peabody Museum is Professor Putnam’s report on the purchase of the Serpent Mound in Adams County, O., for which a number of ladies of Boston subscribed a sum of nearly six thousand dollars, and on the steps taken to secure the preservation of the interesting monument. Eight weeks were given to the care- ful restoration of the great earthwork, erecting a fence about it, so that only persons on foot can enter the enclosure. The land was cleared of brush and briers, and the mound was sown with blue- grass-seed. A road half a mile long was made, extending to a grove of maples in the south-eastern corner of the grounds, in which are two springs. This grove has also been enclosed by a fence. A substantial spring-house of stone has been built, and trees are now being planted along the road. A gravel path has been laid out from the spring to the serpent, and various other im- provements have been made. It is highly gratifying that Professor Putnam has succeeded in preserving this remarkable monument, and the liberal action of the subscribers will undoubtedly bé a ma- terial help to future endeavors to preserve ancient monuments in the United States. Several changes have taken place in the board of trustees of the museum: Col. Theodore Lyman resigned his trusteeship, and Mr. Samuel H. Scudder was elected his successor. George F. Hoar, who resigned the presidency of the American Antiquarian Society, was succeeded by Stephen Salisbury. Professor Putnam became trustee as president of the Boston Society of Nat- ural History. Professor Gray was succeeded by Professor Lover- ing, president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. — A new thermometer for measuring the temperature of the air has been constructed by R. Assmann. In order to protect it from the influences of radiation and other sources of heat, he inserts the bulb of the thermometer in a metal tube which is open at its lower end., An aspirator is fastened to the tube near the bulb, and a continuous current of air of about seven feet velocity passes the latter. Thus it assumes the true temperature of the air. Thetube is made of highly polished nickel-plated brass in order to protect it from radiation. Experiments show that this thermometer gives entire satisfaction. Two instruments, one of which was exposed to: the sun in July while the other was shadowed, showed the same temperature. A dry and a wet thermometer being inserted in the tube, it serves as hygrometer in the same way as the ordinary ther- mometer. Undoubtedly the device is superior to the arrangement of thermometer now in general use. — Prof. David S. Martin is about to publish the large-scale geo- logical map of the environs of New York City, which he exhibited at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advance- ment of Science. The object is to furnish a map in which all those important geological features which were not before brought to- gether in one representation, can be clearly seen by an audience or 108 aclass. The coloring will be the same asin Hitchcock’s geological map of the United States. — The Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales for 1886 contains a very interesting sketch of the history of the floods in Lake George, by H. C. Russell. The lake has no outlet, and since its discovery in 1820 it has been dry twice. According to re- ports of the natives, the basin contained no water for some time previous to 1820. In 1823 it reached its highest level, attaining a maximum depth of twenty-four feet. Then it commenced to dry up, and in 1838 and 1839 it contained no water. In 1840 four feet of water were found in the basin, which, however, from 1845 to 1849, was again completely dry. During the ensuing ten years the lake began to fill, but in 1859 it was dry for the third time. Since that time it steadily increased in size until 1874, when it reached the same height as in 1823. This record is of great interest, as it shows the alternating periods of humidity and dryness. It is partic- ularly important in connection with Seibt’s and Briickner’s studies of similar changes in the levels of lakes in the northern hemisphere, which were noticed in No. 232 of Sczemce. Briickner arrived at the ‘conclusion that the whole of the northern hemisphere passed through a dry period between 1830 and 1840. This was followed by a period of increased humidity about 1850. A new dry period developed between 1860 and 1865, while after 1875 the precipita- tion increased. The periodical changes of Lake George agree with these results. From these and several other facts, Briickner infers, in reviewing Russell’s paper, that the whole earth takes part in these periodical changes. — Domingos Soares Ferreira Penna, the Brazilian naturalist, died at Para, Brazil, on the 8th of January. During the last twenty- five or thirty years not a naturalist has done any work in the Ama- zon region who is not more or less indebted to Snr. Penna in one way or another. Agassiz and Hartt and the members of the late geological survey of Brazil were greatly aided by his valuable per- sonal knowledge of the region, and by his useful suggestions. He was at one time secretary of the province of Para, and at the time of his death was director of the Provincial Museum at Para. LEPEERS) BO) LAE EDMOR: *." Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. an all cases required as proof of good faith. The writer's name is Twenty copies of the number containing his communication will be furnished Sree to any correspondent on request. The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. Ratio between Men and Women. Pror. W. K. BROOKS of Baltimore has discovered that a favor- able environment tends to produce an excess of females among animals and plants, and an unfavorable environment an excess of males. If this be true, a race or species which is on the point of extinction should have an excess of males. The population of Australia consists of a small and decreasing number of aborigines, and a prosperous and increasing population of foreign settlers and their descendants, amounting, in all, to nearly three millions of persons. As the native population is rapidly dis- appearing, we should expect to find the males more numérous among them,.as compared with the females, than among the inhab- itants of foreign origin, provided other conditions are equal. For ‘each 100 females there were in Victoria, of native-born Australians, 100z5 males; and of foreigners, exclusive of Chinese, 1292, males. The ratio of males to females in the population of foreign origin is therefore very much greater than it would be if it depended upon the birth-rate alone; and, as this modifying influence does not affect the aborigines, an excess of males among them no greater or even a little less than that found among the inhabitants of foreign origin would indicate that the excess of male births is much greater among them than among the people of foreign origin. Computa- tion shows that the excess of males among the aborigines is, not- withstanding these neutralizing influences, very much greater than it is among the foreign population. For all Australia there are 143.72 aboriginal males to each roo females ; there are only 118.64 males of foreign descent to each 100 SCIENCE: [Vor. XI. No. 265 females, notwithstanding the fact that 129 males settle in these colonies to each 100 females. To those who wish to follow this subject further, it may be in- teresting to know that an enormous collection of statistics relative to the Indian tribes of the United States was made under the direction of Maj. J. W. Powell. The results of this census have not been published, but the material is still available, and would fur- nish a much better basis of comparison than the one chosen by Professor Brooks. O. T. MASON. Washington, D.C., Feb. 27. Classification of Diphtheria. THERE isa very striking resemblance between the membrane of diphtheria and the fungi that produce dry rot, or more especially those forms that grow in living trees. A white or yellow leathery substance is produced, sometimes known as ‘punk,’ —the Merz- lius lachrymalis in dead wood, and some species of Polyporus in the living. The hyphe, or roots, penetrate the cells of the wood in every direction, producing disintegration and decay. Diphtheria is called an exudation, and classed as a bacterial dis- ease, a Schzzomycetes, when in fact it is a fungus of a higher order, a Hyphomycetes. It grows on the surface, and spreads by fibula- tions, and its roots penetrate deeply into the tissue, producing changes and decomposition, which becomes the soil for bacteria, generating poisons that are absorbed and powerfully affect the whole system. In this view its life-history has not been studied or found out. It is known that the membrane can be transplanted, and that the surface abrasions on which it growsare of a painful, smart- ing kind. How it is propagated by spores is unknown. There is evidently some peculiar condition required, as in the JZerulzus, which will not grow unless an alkali is present. It may be that an alkaline condition of the system is required, which is the reason of the capriciousness of its infection. The treatment of the disease in this light assumes a new aspect, and gives purpose to thorough local antiseptic applications; Le., thorough eradication of the fungi before it can have time to poi- son the system. P. J. FARNSWORTH. Clinton, Io,, Feb. 22. Sex and Consumption. I was delighted at seeing the main tendency of the article on sex and consumption, that appeared in Sczence of Feb. 3. The views that I have since 1882 been trying in vain to get investigated here, appear to be receiving serious attention in your great country. That this progress in a question of nothing less than the life or death of a large multitude of the civilized world may not be checked by the presence of one or two erroneous inferences in that article, I shall be glad if you will permit me to point them out. Although for the present time it is true that the total male mor- tality exceeds that of the female, yet that neither applies to all periods of life, nor is the difference so great as to justify the term ‘protected’ to the female in any sense. From the age of five to fifteen, the female mortality from consumption is much greater than that of the male, and it is in the later periods of life that the latter preponderates. Further, in the strictly rural districts the female mortality exceeds that of the male; and it is only within a comparatively recent period that the total male mortality has ex- ceeded that of the female, and that has been brought about by men who had been brought up and engaged in country pursuits, rushing into town employments. One word more. An organ that is subject to hypereemia does not gradually waste away, and hence we must look elsewhere for an explanation of the mode in which those conditions of our civilization that tend to reduce the capacity of the chest produce consumption. G. W. HAMBLETON. London, Feb. 16. A Worm in a Hen’s Egg. THE nematoid worm sometimes found in the white of the hen’s egg is not Ascarzs lumbricozdes, as your correspondent of last week supposes, but a Heterakzs, generally H. zz/flexa, the normal habitat of which is the fowl’s intestine, but which occasionally wanders into the oviduct. R. RAMSAY WRIGHT. Toronto, Ont., Feb. 28. Marcu 2, 1888. | Calls for Domestic Animals. IN reply to Mr. H. Carrington Bolton’s query in relation to terms used in addressing domesticated animals, I beg leave to give in- formation regarding the terms used by the Eskimo of Cumberland Sound and Davis Strait in addressing dogs. To start dogs, a whistling sound made in the throat, and strongly aspirated, some- thing like Z/ #/ is used. For urging the dogs, a great variety of terms are used, the most common of which are the following, expressed in the phonetic alphabet of the Bureau of Ethnology : ak (the & being very guttural) ; ya¢zt ; wz (the z pronounced in a very high key, and lasting from about five to ten seconds) ; @ (pro- nounced in a similar way); yawksa kdksa ; the same sound as the one used in starting the dogs. For stopping the dogs, a deep 0, drawn very long, is used; for making them lie down, a similar @ spoken in a low voice, and at the same time the whip is gently thrown over their heads. In order to turn to the right, the driver sings out, az'a au'a ya au'a, throwing the whip to the left ; to turn to the left, the term goz’a goz’a ya got'a is used. For driving dogs from some food or other things they may attack, the term a / preceded by the name of the dog, is used. Dr. F. BOAs. New York, Feb. 20. Vermin-Eaters. CERTAIN aborigines of South America are addicted to a peculiarly disgusting habit, as the following extract from A. Simson’s ‘ Travels in the Wilds of Ecuador’ attests: “Lice of different species are the most abundant, and it is among the commonest sights to see the inhabitants engaged in their chase, keenly pursuing them in each other’s heads, and cracking them, when captured, between their teeth” (p. 9). It is interesting to compare this with the evi- dence of a traveller in another part of the globe. Octavius G. Stone, in ‘A Few Months in New Guinea’ (Franklin Square Li- brary edition), says, “A very favorite pastime, particularly of the women, is hunting in each other’s heads for vermin. Two, three, or four in a row, sitting one behind the other, might be constantly seen in front of my tent, pursuing their favorite amusement. It is a common one among most colored races, and a wholesome prac- tice to boot. But eazzmg the lice is another affair. I could hardly be- lieve my own eyes when I first saw them engaged in this disgusting employment ; yet they not only eat every one caught, but appear to do it with considerable zest and relish. Whether they believe it nourishing, or take it simply as a domme bouche, is not quite certain, but opinion inclines toward the latter theory’ (p. 11). Whether this be the correct explanation or not, remains to be seen. Cer- tainly it is not for lack of food that the practice is kept up. Is the practice known to exist elsewhere in America? The tribes visited by Mr. Simson were the Piojes and Jivaros; those seen by Mr. Stone belonged to the Motu district of New Guinea. Perhaps when all instances of the occurrence of this strange habit have been col- lated and examined, a clear and satisfactory explanation of it may be given. In the mean time, I simply call attention to this interest- ing point in the anthropology of the Naturvolker. A. F. CHAMBERLAIN. Toronto, Feb. 15. IN addition to Mr. Chamberlain’s quotations, I would say that the custom of eating vermin is a wide-spread one, although most travellers do not mention it in their reports. Parry and. Lyon, as well as Hall, found it practised by the Eskimo of Hudson Bay and Frobisher Strait. I found the same habit among the Eskimo of Cumberland Sound and Davis Strait, and I well remember a father carrying his three-year-old child, and feeding it with the lice he picked from its head. F. BOAs. New York, Feb. 25. The Snow-Snake and the r-Sound. Dr. BEAUCHAMP will, I am sure, agree with me that the pres- ence of the snow-snake game among the Southern Iroquoian tribes can be more firmly established by the evidence to be obtained di- rectly from the traditions of those Tuscaroras who early in the present century came directly from the South to their present habi- tation in Niagara County, N.Y., and by the evidence of language, than in any other way. SCIPNCE: 109 In these traditions the Z¢z-ru-/Ad'-ka@ (the Nottowayans), among others, are mentioned as contestants with the S#d@-ru'-re™ (Tusca- roras) in this game of snow-snake. The name of the so-called ‘ snow-snake’ in the language of the Tuscaroras is 2-/7a-hwé"-zé (misprinted in my former article); and of the game, 72d-yG-tvad-hweé"-/d'-yéis (literally, ‘they two bet snow- snake’). U-¢rd-hweé"'-zé is a pure noun, having the power of com- position either with verbs or adjectives, and also having a declension to express the nominative and oblique cases, — circumstances that in the nature of the language assign to the noun an age far ante- dating the wars of 1711-13. The game was played in winter, and. a slight modification of it in the summer. The southern limit of snow at sea-level is, in the United States, the 30th parallel of northern latitude; and, as the territory of the Southern Iroquoian tribes lay between the 35th and 39th parallels, it is quite likely that they often had winters ‘ appropriate’ for the use of the snow-snake. With the assistance of some very intelligent Onondagas, some of whom spoke Tuscarora and Oneida in addition to their own tongue, I collected, in 1880 and 1884, with other linguistic matter, a vocab- ulary of more than fifteen hundred words and over five hundred and fifty phrases and sentences, and I also made translations of two quite lengthy aboriginal compositions. In the prosecution of these linguistic studies, great care was taken in verifying the work at every stage of it. No Oxondagan word was found in which the y-sound was used. Mr. Albert Cusick, a man of intelligence and education, was one of my assistants in these investigations. The Onondagan, like the Senecan, tongue of to-day has either transmuted the 7-sound into an aspirate, or has simply suppressed it. Mr. Horatio Hale, the eminent linguist and ethnologist, says (Book of Rites, p. 46), “In former times, as we know from Jesuit vocabularies, the sound of the letter 7 existed in the Onondagan dialect. Since their day the sound has disappeared from it en- tirely.” Dr. Daniel Wilson, in his lecture on the Huron-Iroquois of Canada (Zrans. Roy. Soc. of Canada, 1884, Sec. II. p. 105), states that the ~-sound is “no longer heard” in the Onondagan tongue. : No one denies that the 7-sound once existed in the speech of the Onondagas, as it is still common to nearly all of the cognate dialects. The orthographies and translations of both Schoolcraft and Zeis- berger are so inaccurate and untrustworthy that it seems strange to see them quoted as authority on a point of phonetics requiring precision and accuracy of observation, and record of language, for its proper determination. Dr. Beauchamp says that in a version of the Lord’s Prayer sent to him by a native Onondaga in that tongue, “the letter in question frequently occurred, but the sound was obscure. I went over the version with him syllable by syllable, to get the exact sound, and retained the letter four times as clearly enunciated.” Faulty articulation quite probably accounts for these four 7’s re- tained by the doctor. In the summer of 1884, I obtained from living Onondagas, and not from ‘lifeless books,’ a version of the Lord’s Prayer in which the v-sound does not once occur. One difficulty experienced in my work was to obtain the Onon- dagan orthoepy of a word. The intercommingling with the Onon- dagas, of persons speaking cognate languages in which some form of the v-sound occurs, is in many instances the cause of the uncon- scious mispronunciation of a word. To the student of Iroquoian tongues faulty articulation, worse orthography, and oéoszs (defective hearing) are fruitful sources of error. Every Indian is not competent to furnish satisfactory linguistic data. Equally deficient are many collectors of vocabularies and linguistic material. Recognizing these difficulties, the Rev. Ashur Wright, who knew well what Iroquoian orthoepy and orthography require, says, on the sixth page of his valuable Senecan spelling-book, printed in 1842, “Tt is sometimes, also, very difficult to decide on the correct usage, 110 SCIENCE: where there are differences of pronunciation among the Indians. In such cases we have sought for the pure Seneca in contradistinc- tion from the zdzoms of Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, etc., and for Seneca as spoken by the old men.” With these facts in view, I cannot accept Dr. Beauchamp’s use of the ~-sound in his orthography 4a-wher-tah for kd-whe''-1da’. J. N. B. HEWITT. Washington, D.C., Feb. 18, Queries. 29. THE JACKSON MEDALS. — In 1874 or 1875 farmer brought to this city and sold to Mr. W. H. Daum a silver medal which his boys found in a stone tumulus, supposed to be the grave of Little Bear, an Osage chief. The medal is three inches in diameter, has on its face the profile of Jackson, with the words, “ Andrew Jack- son, President of the United States, A.D. 1829,” and on the reverse a pipe and a tomahawk crossed, two hands clasped, — one that of an Indian, and the other of the President, — and the words ‘‘ peace and friendship.’’ Can you or any of the readers of Sczevce tell me why these medals were given to the Indians, and whether the prac- tice is a common one? L. C. WOOSTER. Eureka, Kan., Feb. 23. Answers. 26. THE EARTH’S ROTATION AS AFFECTING RAILWAY- TRAINS. — Mr. Goodridge will find a partial answer to his query, in “The Annual Report of the Chief Signal Officer for 1885,’ Part II., which forms W. Ferrel’s ‘ Recent Advances in Meteorology,’ p. 191. After having shown that a body moving in any direction on the earth’s surface is deflected, and giving the formulas for computing the deflecting force, the example is treated, “If a railroad-train on the parallel of 45° runs at the rate of forty miles per hour, what would be the lateral pressure per ton of the weight of the train on the side of the rails if both were on the same level?” and the an- swer is given that it would be 0.38 of a pound per ton of two thou- sand pounds. In reply to this query, a writer in Engzneertng News quotes the famous ‘ Bar's law’ regarding deflection of rivers. Fer- rel’s formula shows that the action of the earth’s rotation is not at all confined to a body moving in the direction of the meridian, as this writer also assumes. Ferrel gives an example of this kind, and finds that a river one mile in width, flowing in latitude 45° at the rate of four miles per hour, will be 1.2 inches higher at the right- hand bank than at the left-hand bank. BeBe New York, Feb. 25. 21. GLOBULAR LIGHTNING. — Apropos of this subject, let me mention three cases which have come to my knowledge in such a way as to inspire confidence in them. The first in order of time occurred about 1859 or 1860, and was witnessed by a lady, the wife of a prominent physician. She was lying down for an after-dinner nap one summer day. From her letter I quote what seems perti- nent: ‘“ The experience was this, and at The Forest Grove House, Schooley’s Mountains. .. . We were aroused by a sudden and quite heavy hail-storm. . . . I immediately went to the open win- dow, putting it down, leaving just space enough to put out my hands, in which I enjoyed the fun of catching the stones to eat. ... This was only for a few minutes, when we were terribly startled by a flash of lightning and a peal of thunder, and I saw what appeared to be a ball of fire the size of my head come down the body of a tree about three yards from my hands. . . . The flash, the thunder, and the ball seemed simultaneous. . . . The tree did not afterward show the usual appearance of being struck, except just at the roots, where the ground was torn up for quite a little distance. . . . The house was struck at the same time and set on fire at the roof, but at its farthest point from us. . . . I was the only one who saw the ball of fire, but I have never doubted that I really did see it. . . . It was too plainly before my very eyes.’’ The sec- ond case occurred a few miles north of Lambertville, N.J., in July, 1879. A barn was burned, and the company which had insured it instituted an investigation to determine the cause of the fire. From the testimony, I quote that of two men who swore that they saw “a cylindrical form of fire, apparently about three feet in diameter, and from six to eight feet in length, fall with a-whizzing sound. ... . [Vor. XI. No. 265 No thunder was heard, nor did any rain fall at that time... . Others also saw the strange occurrence.” These men were in Penn- sylvania, across the Delaware River, about a mile from the spot where the barn was burned. The third case was at Connersville, Ind., in August of 1881. Mr. L. L. Broaddus wrote me that it was about twenty minutes before four in the morning when the family and several neighbors were roused by a terrific crash. One of the neighbors, living nearly half a mile away, slept in a room from which she could see the Broaddus mansion. She saw a bolt strike a tree and burst like a bomb, scattering fire-balls over the yard, and brilliantly illuminating the premises. Mr. W. H. Broaddus and his wife slept on the side of the house where the tree was, and saw the “second act;’ that is, the fire-balls rolling about. They say the phenomenon lasted long enough for them to collect themselves and call occupants of other rooms, who, however, did not arrive in time to witness the display. The duration of the phenomenon wa estimated by those who saw it at about a minute. F. C. VAN DYCK. New Brunswick, N.J., Feb. 20. 21. GLOBULAR LIGHTNING. —It may throw further light upon this interesting phenomenon to quote several additional reports received by the United States Hydrographic Office from masters of vessels; and, by permission of the hydrographer, I have selected the following as likely to be of interest in this connection. The phenomenon seems to be by no means unusual at sea, and perhaps some readers of Sczenzce who have devoted special attention to the study of electricity will contribute new facts or suggestions which may lead to a satisfactory explanation. The instances already cited (Sczence, x. p. 324, xi. pp. 38, 62), with those given below, would seem to furnish a very good basis upon which to build a theory. A further discussion will also be valuable as indicating, possibly, certain important details of observation which have hitherto been neglected, but which it might be practicable to attend to, even on shipboard. Captain Moore, British steamship ‘ Siberian,’ in addi- tion to the report already given, states that he encountered a severe electric storm Jan. 17, 1887, latitude 42° 50’ north, longitude 59° 14’ west; dark, gloomy weather, with rain and sleet. Between 8 and 9 P.M., during shift of wind from south-west to south-east, a brilliant display of St. Elmo’s fire was observed, taking the shape of balls of fire shooting up from the horizon all around the vessel, and bursting at an altitude of about 5°. One ball, showing a green light, was mistaken fora vessel’s side-light ; brilliant lightning to the south-west. Captain Bowers, American bark ‘ Hannah McLoon,’ encountered a severe electric storm Feb. 27, 1887, latitude 37° 17’ north, longitude 73° 56’ west, during a stormy gale from the south- west ; all points and all wire rigging brilliantly illumined ; fire-balls flying in the air. Captain Mitchell, British steamship ‘ Mentmore,’ experienced a succession of terrific hurricanes from west-north-west during a voyage from Liverpool to Baltimore. Jan. 28, 1885, at 2.30 A.M., a ball of St. Elmo’s fire fell between the bridge and fore- mast, and afterwards played upon the foremast and gaff. This ball of fire was so bright that for a time it blinded the officer on watch. Captain McKinnon, British brig ‘ Nellie Crosby,’ encoun- tered a remarkably severe electric storm Nov. 30, 1886, off Minot’s Ledge light, Massachusetts, with terrific thunder and_ blinding lightning. A ball burst between the masts, completely blinding all on board; heavy rain; sea full of phosphorescence. Captain Sparks, American bark ‘ John H. Pierson,’ reports witnessing an unusual phenomenon during a hurricane, Aug. 25, 1886, between the hours of 9 and rr P.M. The sky was completely overcast, the weather dark and gloomy, and rain falling heavily. In the northern horizon, balls of fire were seen to shoot upwards, reaching an eleva- tion of at least 30°, and covering a horizontal angle of at least 20°. The display continued at frequent intervals during the time men- tioned. Captain Bodden, British schooner ‘ Clara L. Dyer,’ reports that on Sept. 20, 1887, when in the Gulf of Mexico, about two hundred miles south by east from South Pass, had very heavy rain- squalls with thunder and lightning. The effect of the lightning was very peculiar, as it seemed to issue from the waves instead of from the heavens; thought at first it was due to the phosphorescence of the water, but the flashes seemed too plainly marked for that. EVERETT HAYDEN. U.S. Hydrographic Office, Feb. 20. deities Marcu 2, 1888. | SCIENCE: eo mee me BOOK-NOTES. — Who are the anarchists ? What is their doctrine? Why would they overthrow so- ciety and government, and what do they wish to substitute?—these are questions fre- quently asked by thoughtful citizens. An article by Z. L. White, in the March number _of The American Magazine, will answer such inquiries, and show the depth and viru- lence of the disease of which the Haymarket murders were only a symptom. —We have received an extract from Alden’s ‘Manifold Cyclopedia.’ The pub- lication is intended to be a cheap cyclopedia anda dictionary of the English language. As it draws from trustworthy sources, it is re- liable, and the print and the illustrations are good, considering the marvellously low price of fifty cents per volume. —T. Y. Crowell & Co. will publish next month ‘Taxation in American States and Cities,’ by Prof. Richard T. Ely of Johns Hopkins University, a member of the Mary- land Tax Commission. — Henry-Holt & Co. have just issued, in a handsome volume, ‘The Life of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet,’ founder of deaf-mute instruction in America. The work is a very interesting one, and will have interest for others than the deaf and their friends. — Brentano’s ‘ New York City ’ will issue in a few days a book by Walter Hubbell, the successful exposer of modern Spiritualism, entitled ‘The Great Amherst Mystery,’ which the author claims is a true narrative of actual experience with ghosts in a haunted house, which he entered intending to expose a fraud, and remained to take the notes which he has now made use of to startle and convince his readers. —J. B. Lippincott Co. will issue on March I, in connection with the Edinburgh pub- lishers, the first volume of a new edition of «Chambers’s Encyclopedia,’ to be complet- ed in ten volumes, following one another at short intervals. The maps will be increased in number, and a special set for the United States introduced. In lighter literature they are preparing ‘ Stanley’s Expedition for the Relief of Emin Pacha;’ ‘Half-Hours with the Best Foreign Authors,’ in four volumes, arranged by Charles Morris; and the sixth and seventh volumes of Furness’s var-zorum edition of Shakspeare, devoted to ‘ The Mer- chant of Venice.’ — An English edition of Babyhood will be begun with the April (1888) number, the magazine being issued simultaneously in London and New York. — P. Blakiston, Son, & Co., medical and scientific publishers, booksellers, and import- ers, 1012 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, pub- lished Feb. 24 the sixth edition of ‘ Memo- randa on Poisons and their Antidotes,’ by the late Dr. Thomas Hawkes Tanner, revised by Dr. Henry Liffmann, the medico-legal expert of Philadelphia. They have also just pub- lished ‘ Practical Physiology, including Chem- ical and Experimental Physiology,’ by Prof. William Sterling of Owens College, Man- Za = tl a = 0 = g = a. Gp = = ee Ss 3 (Ca) = o ke 2 o + we mx > ~~] i S a = 5 ae ; ey e a m= 8 > trees) ae) ie eh 4 mo A ote =z ~< S = ey ae eae — a = = O = ey a ~ oO an} a = = as «GATZZNd AHL: Sa dQ ay) S77 a chester, illustrated with one hundred and forty-two wood-engravings. — The March volumes of Ticknor’s Paper Series are as follows: ‘ Adventures of a Widow,’ by Edgar Fawcett; and ‘Indian Summer,’ by William D. Howells. — Dr. H. C. McCook’s charming book on insect-life, ‘Tenants of an Old Farm,’ having been through several editions here in the hands of Fords, Howard, & Hulbert of New York, has now been brought out in England by Hodder & Stoughton, with an introduc- tion by Sir John Lubbock, the distinguished entomologist. Proceedings of Societies. Anthropological Society, Washington. feb. 21. —J. Curtin, Myths and Folk-Tales of Ireland. Biological Society, Washington. feb, 25. — Robert T. Hill, The South-west- ern Termination of the Atlantic Timber Belt ; F. W. True, Changes in the Catalogues of North American Mammals since 1879; T. H. Bean, Distribution and some Characters of our Salmonide ; Cooper Curtice, Some Early Stages in the Life-History of Taria pectinata. Science Club, Lawrence, Kan. Feb. 24. —V. L. Kellogg, Clays and Kaolin- ite; Notes on Bacteria in Potable Water ; W.S. Franklin, The Axioms of Geometry. A TEMPORARY BINDER for Science is now ready, and will be mailed postpaid on receipt of price. Cloth - - Half Morocco - 50 cents. 75 cents. or replaced without disturbing the others, and the papers are not muti- lated for subsequent permanent bind- ing. Filed in this binder, Sczezce is always convenient for reference. N. D. C. HODGES, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. 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Sent postpaid on receipt of price. Academy of Natural Sciences of Phila- delphia. HARVARD UNIVERSITY. Courses of instruction will be given in the following subjects during the summer vacation of 1888 : — Botany, Chemistry, French, German, Geology, History, Physics, Physical Training, Topography. For information apply to the Secretary; of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass, (TSTERBROOK’S SCOTT’S EMULSION of Pure Cod Liver Oil, with Uypophosphites, is a combination of two of the most valua- ble remedies in existence fir the cure of Consumption and all Wasting Con- ditions ; is more generally reeommend- ed and used by Physicians than any known remedy; it gives most satisfac- tory results, and tones up the system; and when the Consumptive has wasted away and loses hope, the Emulsion will speedily check the ravages of this terrible disease, and restore the sufferer to good health and happiness. 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MAKER OF Microscope Stands, Oil Immersion Object- ives and Abbe Con- densers for Bacterial | and Histological work, of Objectives, Camera Lucida and other ac- cessory apparatus. STEEL PENS. OF SUPERIOR AND STANDARD QUALITY. Leading Nos.: 048, 14, 130, 135, 239, 333 For Sale by all Stationers. THE ESTERBROOK STEEL PER 6C0., Works: Camden, N.J. 26 John St., New York. Seri FRIDAY, MARCH og, 1888. THE ADDRESS OF Maj. J. W. Powell on evolution in civilized man, delivered before the Anthropological Society of Washington on Tuesday evening, a full abstract of which is given in our Wash- ington letter, will be found interesting and important. It will be seen that Major Powell rejects the doctrines of evolution as applied to the development of civilized man by the Spencerian school of philosophers. He presents his argument in his usual lucid and forcible manner, and illustrates each point copiously. This address is more popular in its character than either of Major Powell’s pre- vious papers on the same subject, but as a scientific discussion of an important scientific question, it is, in our estimation, the best of the series. THE LATEST REPORTS received by the Hydrographic Office about the logs of the great raft abandoned south of Nantucket about two and one-half months ago, prove, that, though they are now widely separated, their general drift has been in an east-south- east direction, the logs being found a little to the southward of this line. That they were not carried more to the northward and east- ward by the Gulf Stream, as would be expected, was probably due to the strong north-west winds which prevailed during the latter part of December and the first part of January. Fortunately, no vessel has been disabled by collision with them, although the Ger- man bark ‘Bremen,’ which was in company with the logs for five days, in latitude 39° north, longitude 62° west, had her sheathing torn and rudder injured. THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES was organized in 1817 as the Lyceum of Natural History. It is fourth in point of age among American scientific societies. The name and constitution were changed in 1876. ‘The Annals,’ begun in 1824, have been distributed in all lands, and have given world-wide reputation to the society. The Transactions, begun in 1881, givea record of the meetings, papers, and discussions, are published in monthly or bi- monthly numbers, and make an octavo volume each year. The library now numbers over eight thousand titles, and is especially rich in sets of the publications of foreign societies. It is now on deposit in the Library Building of Columbia College, and is accessi- ble to the public from 8 A.M. to ro P.M. every day of the year except Sundays. The cabinet was destroyed by fire in 1866. Previous to that date it was the principal collection in the city, and did a noble work. The academy has long looked forward to the time when it could secure a building of its own, such as the corresponding societies in Boston and Philadelphia have long enjoyed. It is not to the credit of New York that its oldest scientific organization, after nearly three-quarters of a century of steady and persever- ing activity, should be still unprovided with a building, while many other cities can show noble monuments of scientific interest and public spirit. Why should not the recent meeting of the American Association in this city be permanently commemorated by the erection of a fire-proof building for the accommodation of the academy, or perhaps of several other societies under the same roof, —a building which should be at once a benefit and an honor to the metropolis of America? The interest of the community has been aroused and quickened in the direction of science by the meet- ing of the association, and the Academy of Sciences would now invite the citizens of New York to take a greater interest in its work. THE NATIONAL ELECTRIC LIGHT CONVENTION, THE National Electric Light Association met in Pittsburgh on Feb. 21, and continued in session for three days. The association is mainly made up of representatives of the various arc lighting companies and of the alternating system of incandescent lighting. As Pittsburgh is the headquarters of the Westinghouse Company, and as the Westinghouse Company practically represents just at present the alternating system of electrical distribution, the investi- gation and discussion of the system occupied a considerable part of the time of the convention, although a couple of papers were read on underground electrical conductors, and other subjects were dis- cussed which will be mentioned below. The most important paper was by Mr. T. C. Smith, the title be- ing ‘ The Distribution of Electricity by Alternating Currents.’ The alternating system, briefly, consists in distributing the alternating currents at high potential, reducing to the low potential necessary for safety and for the running of incandescent lamps, by means of ‘transformers,’ —that is, induction-coils working backward, — changing high-potential to low-potential currents. Mr. Smith’s paper gave the practical experience he had gained in working with the system, and very frankly told some of the difficulties he had met. With regard to the best way of running the circuits, he says, “« The general question as to whether it is better to use separate cir- cuits for separate machines, or to couple them into a general set of ‘bus’ wires and distribute from them, is too large to be lightly de- cided ; as also is the question as to whetherit is best to run separate circuits for separate districts, or to run intoa general system of high-pressure mains outside of the station, feeding into these mains at different points, and again distributing from them. . There seems to be no doubt that in underground systems the network of high-pressure mains would be best, but for over-head work we have adopted the system of separate circuits from separate dynamos. I now come to the question of the placing of the converters ; and for this I think that you may safely lay down the general rule, that, wherever you are simply carrying current, do it at a high potential, and keep your low pressure for purely local distribution, With proper precautions, I do not see that there is any real danger in carrying the high-pressure wires into and through the building. . We started in with the idea that it was better, in cases where we had from the number of lights in a building to use more than one converter, to bank them ; that is to say, connect all the prima- ries and all the secondaries in parallel, . but two or three pe- culiar experiences have led us to change our plans, and never to do so if it can be easily avoided.” Following Mr. Smith’s paper was one by Mr. Shallenberger, on “The Energy of Alternating Currents.’ The first part of this paper was a description of the ordinary and well-known phenome- na of alternating currents: they have been sufficiently described in a former paper in this journal. The following, however, is sug- gestive: “The question naturally arises, What effect does this new element of self-induction have onthe possibilities of practical meas- urements of alternating currents for commercial work ?”” The two cases in which the effect is negligible are, Ist, the measurement of the current through an incandescent lamp; and, 2d, the current supplied to lamps through converters with cores far below satura- tion, and carrying a fair proportion of their full normal load. “There is a third case, however, which arises in practice, in which central station instruments give a somewhat false notion of the actual energy transformed to the circuits; and this is the one in which a large number of converters are connected to the primary circuit, but with the secondaries open.” In this case we may have no energy transformed, “ while at the same time a considerable reading might be shown on the current instruments.” Now, I have quoted from these papers principally because I wish 1 Abstract of paper on alternating current motors, Sczence, Feb. 24, 1888. II2 to point out some disadvantages of the alternating system. The advantages of the system, as allowing the distribution of incan- descent lights over extended areas, are so well known, that it is no more than fair that the drawbacks should be recognized, as it is by ‘the honest investigation of every side of a case that science and industries advance. It was pointed out in the paper on motors re- ferred to above, that the energy, being transformed, which is equal to CE, the product of the electro-motive force by the current, could be changed in two ways: supposing Z is constant, we can either change the absolute value of C, or we change the position of its maximum with respect to the maximum of Z. Now, if the former was what actually occurred, as we decreased the work being done, — turned outa number of lamps, for instance, — we would decrease the current; and the heating of the line wire, equal approximately to C2 R, would decrease in a still greater proportion. But this is 2 not what really occurs. We have onlya partial decrease of current, the total decrease being partly made up by a shift of the position of the curve representing C. It was pointed out that this was a disadvantage, as the heating of the line was independent of the posttzon of the current curve, depending simply on its value. There is another disadvantage in this, which was not mentioned in the paper referred to. A dynamo cannot carry more than a certain current, corresponding to its maximum capacity. Now, if there were absolutely no change in the va/we of the current from full load to no load, it would mean that all of the dynamos in the station would have to be run all the time; for, if we distributed the cur- rent among a few of them, they would rapidly heat and burn out. It is evident that this state of affairs would be most uneconomical, since the absolute number of horse-power lost in each machine varies very little with the load, and, besides these losses, we have the depreciation and wear on the machinery. Of course, the en- gines, supposing there were no lamps being burned, would be doing very little work, running uneconomically. In practice we do not have this state of affairs: the current does decrease in value as lamps are turned out in the secondary circuits, but it does not de- crease proportionally to the lamps turned out, and we must run more dynamos than are necessary to supply the energy required in the lamps; and this at a reduced load, and therefore at a low effi- ciency. There are a number of interesting points that might be brought out here, but until I have calculated the results of some experiments, and have from them some reliable data as to the mag- nitude of the different effects, I will not push the matter further. From Mr. Smith’s paper it would seem that the Westinghouse Company have found it best to run the converters separately ; that is, not to join a number of them in parallel. Now, the objections to this are, Ist, that it does not allow the converting system to take advantage of the law of averages; and, 2d, that as each converter is only working for a limited time on full load, and as the efficiency on partial loads is not great, the total efficiency is much reduced. As for the first, it is well known that if the total number of lamps in a certain district is, say, 2,000, the maximum capacity of the station required to supply them by a direct system will be very much less, say, 1,000 lamps; this, of course, because all the houses in the district will never have all of their lamps burning at once. If, how- ever, we wish to supply them by converters, using a converter in each house, the capacity of our converters would have to be 2,000 lamps, since any one house might have all the lamps burning on some special occasion. If we calculate the amount of gas we could burn in a month, supposing each jet were burning all the time, and compare with the amount we actually do burn, we will find that we use, perhaps, one-twentieth part of the maximum capacity of our lights. Now, a converter working at an average of one-twentieth of its capacity is not an especially economical machine. The above considerations must interfere with the economy of the alternating system; still it must be remembered that the system is already successful in so many cases, that, in spite of these draw- backs, the field before it is immense. In Mr. Smith’s paper it is especially gratifying to notice how the system has been improved, and is still being improved. Mr. W. L. Church read a paper on ‘Independent Engines for Incandescent Electric-Light Stations,’ in which he pointed out, that, when the amount of energy required from an electric-lighting sta- SCIENCE: [VoLt. XI. No. 266 tion varies within wide limits, it is better to have a number of small engines to drive the dynamos than one large engine. The reason evidently is, that while a large slow-speed engine is more econom- ical than high-speed engines of smaller size, when both are working at a maximum efficiency, yet our single iarge engine would only be working at full load for a small part of the day, while the rest of the time it would be doing only a small part of its possible work, and its efficiency would be low. With a number of small engines, on the other hand, when our load decreases, we can shut off some of the engines and dynamos, keeping those that are left up to very nearly their maximum efficiency. Another point in favor of the small engines is, that they may be belted directly to the dyna- mos, thus avoiding the loss in the countershafting used with the large machine, —a loss that might amount to twenty per cent. Among the other papers read was a very valuable one on electric motors by Dr. G. A. Liebig; while there were a number of others, all of considerable technical interest. Pres. J. F. Morrison having declined a re-election, Mr. S. A. Duncan of Pittsburgh was unanimously elected president of the association. Taken altogether, the meeting was the most important, both as regards attendance and the papers read, that the association has yet held. WASHINGTON SCIENTIFIC NEWS. Maj. J. W. Powell on Evolution in Civilized Man, — Ascertaining the Density of the Earth. — Submarine Oil-Springs in the Pacific. Evolution in Civilized Man. THE annual meeting of the Anthropological Society was held on Tuesday evening, March 6. Maj. J. W. Powell, the retiring presi- dent of the society, occupied the evening by reading a paper, the sixth of a series on the same subject, on the evolution of man. In the opening portions of his address, Major Powell explained the doctrine of evolution as taught in the philosophy of Darwin and embodied in the phrases ‘the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence’ and ‘natural selection.’ ‘“ Nature,” he said, “ gives more lives than she can support: there are more in- dividuals requiring nourishment than there is food. Only those live that obtain sufficient nutriment, and only those live that find a habitat. Of the multitude of germs, some perish on the rocks, some languish in the darkness, some are drowned in the waters, and some are devoured by other living beings. A few live because they fall not upon the rocks, but are implanted in the soils ; because they are not buried in the darkness, but are bathed in the sunlight ; because they are not overwhelmed by deep waters, but are nour- ished by gentle rains; or because they are not devoured by the hungry, but dwell among the living. A few live because they are the favorites of surrounding circumstances. In the more stately phrase of the philosophy of evolution, they are ‘adapted to the environment.’ Evolution, or progress in life, is accomplished among animals or plants by killing the weaker, — the less favored, —and by saving the stronger and more favored. Many must be killed because there are too many, and so the best only are pre- served. Those a little above the average are saved, and this is called ‘natural selection.’ But this general statement must be fol- lowed a little further, that its deeper significance may be grasped.” Major Powell then illustrated the operation of the law of evolution by showing the infinite variety of conditions presented by the earth as the home of living beings, some of the ways. in which compe- tition for life is carried on, and the manner in which plants become more perfect, and animals advanced. ‘The endeavor has been made,” he said, ‘to show what the struggle for existence means, and the part which competition plays in biotic evolution. Compe- tition among plants and animals is fierce, merciless, and deadly ; out of competition fear and pain are born; out of competition come anger and hatred and ferocity. But it must not be forgotten that from this same competition there arise things more beautiful and lovely, — the wing of a butterfly, the plumage of the bird, and the fur of the beast ; the hum of the honey-bee, the song of the night- ingale, and the chatter of the squirrel. So goodand evil dwell to- gether.” Marcu 9, 1888.] Having thus characterized that competition which obtains among the plants and lower animals in the struggle for life, Major Powell continued, “It is proposed to characterize the competition which exists in the higher civilization between man and man, and to show in what respect it may be like, and in what respect it may be different from, biotic, which exists in the lower orders of creation ; and for this purpose the savage and barbaric tribes of men will be neglected. Nor will the nations of early civilization be considered, but only mankind as he has obtained the highest civilization at the present time. “Tn civilization, man does not compete with plants for existence. Thorns cannot drive him from fruits, husks cannot hide nutritious ‘seeds from his eye, shells cannot defend sweet nuts from his grasp ; but he speedily destroys from the face of the earth the plants which are not of the highest value for his purpose, and he plants those that are of value, and multiplies them in a marvellous manner, and by skilled culture he steadily improves their character, making the “sweet sweeter, the rich richer, and the abundant more abundant. “In the higher civilization, man does not compete with the beast for existence. There are no howling wolves or bears on our farms, there are no lions or tigers in civilized lands, and there are no ser- pents in our cities. All these dwell where civilization has not yet ‘conquered its way. Civilized man has domesticated the animal: he hives the bee for its honey, he coops the bird for its eggs, he pastures the cow for her milk, and he stables the horse that his boy may ride on its back. “Tn the highest civilization, the world is not crowded with human beings beyond their ability to procure sustentation; for, if some hunger, it is not because of the lack of the world’s food, but because of the imperfect distribution of that food to all. Men are not crowded against plants, men are not crowded against beasts, and men are not crowded against one another. The land is yet broad enough for all. The valleys are not all filled, the hillsides are not all covered. The portion of the earth that is actually cultivated and utilized to supply the wants of man is very small: it compares with all the land as a garden to a plain, an orchard to a forest, a meadow to a prairie. Nature is prodigal of her gifts. The sweet air, as it sweeps from zone to zone, is more than enough to fan every cheek ; the pure water that falls from the heavens and re- freshes the earth, and is again carried to the heavens on chariots of light, is more than enough to refresh all mankind ; the bounteous ‘earth, spread out in great continents, is more than enough to fur- nish every man a home; and the illimitable sea has wealth for man that yet has not been touched. Thus it is that in human evolution over-population is not a factor, as it is in biotic evolution. “Tn the highest civilization, man does not compete with man in the struggle for existence, and thus human competition is not biotic ‘competition. In biotic evolution the wolf devours the fawn; but on the average he devours the weakest fawn, and the strongest fawn lives to beget a fleeter race of stags; and the evolution of stag-life is accomplished by such means. But when the highway- man waylays the traveller, and there is a struggle for existence which ends in a murder, no step in human evolution is accomplished thereby. “ Again: in the higher civilization, man does not compete with man in the direct struggle for the means of existence as does the brute. In the struggle for subsistence, one ox gores another to drive him froma blade of grass, one wolf rends another to drive him from a bone. Among the animals the struggle for the means of existence is direct, rapacious, and cruel; but in civilized society man shares with his fellow-man: the poor and the unfortunate are fed at the table of charity. A maimed beast is driven from the rib, but men and women will vie with one another to serve a maimed man; and one of the highest aspirations of civilized society is to dispense generous hospitality. “ Vestiges of brutal competition still exist in the highest civiliza- tion, but they are called crimes ; and, to prevent this struggle for ex- istence, penal codes are enacted, prisons are built, and gallowses are erected. Competition in the struggle for existence is the agency by which progress is secured in plant and animal life, but competition in the struggle for existence among men is crzme most degrading. Brute struggles with brute for life, and in the eons of time this struggle has wrought that marvellous transformation which we call SCIENCE: 113 the evolution of animals; but man struggles with man for existence, and murder runs riot : no step in human progress is made. “That struggle for existence between man and man which we have considered and called crime is a struggle of one individual with another. But there is an organized struggle of bodies of men with bodies of men, which is not characterized as murder, but is designated as warfare. Here, then, we have man struggling with man on a large scale, and here it is where some of our modern writers on evolution discover the natural law of selection, —‘ the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence.’ The strongest army survives in the grand average of the wars of the world. “When armies are organized in modern civilization, the very strongest and best are selected, and the soldiers of the world are gathered from their homes in the prime of manhood and in lusty health. If there is one deformed, if there is one maimed, if there is one weaker of intellect, he is left at home to continue the stock, while the strong and the courageous are selected to be destroyed. In organized warfare the processes of natural selection are reversed: the fittest to live are killed, the fittest to die are preserved; and in the grand average the weak, physically, mentally, and morally, are selected to become the propagators of the race.” After illustrating this point at some length, Major Powell said that it must now be shown what man has done with this law of evolution. ‘« A river has a precipice in its course, and where the water falls there is danger to man. The Indian, drifting in his canoe too near to the brink, is carried over the cataract, and his bones are left to bleach upon the rocks below. But at the same place the civilized man finds a power, and about the cataract he builds a city, and with the cataract he runs his mills and factories, and that which was a power of destruction to the savage is a beneficent agent in civilization. “Two summers ago a young friend of mine, with two comrades, was sailing a boat on Yellowstone Lake. As he neared the shore, a little cloud spread overhead; then something happened that the members of the party knew not, for it came as an instant flash. Some time after the flash of unconsciousness, my friend, who was’ the leader of the party and the captain of the boat, opened his eyes once more to the light of day, and the sail of his little boat was all ablaze, and the mast was on fire, and a hole had been pierced in the bottom of his boat, and the waters of the lake were boiling up to fill it, and the gunwales of the boat were sinking down to the water’s edge, and before him in the boat were two prostrate forms, — one paralyzed by the lightning-stroke, and the other dead from the lightning-stroke, — and he himself had his right arm seared by the terrible bolt ; and the boat sank, but in shallow water; and the living struggled out to land, and the maimed buried the dead on the shores of the lake in the land of the beautiful. How terrible is the lightning-stroke! I had another friend whose daughter was stricken with dire disease, and the wife and mother started with the invalid daughter to go beyond the seas, hoping that the mild breezes of the Mediterranean might waft the balm of healing to the loved one while she dwelt on Italian shores; but as the loved ones sailed away, and were lost behind the curve of the world, a great fear came over the heart of my friend that his loved daughter would not live to reach the farther land. Day by day the fear grew ; but one day a flash of lightning came from beyond the sea through the ocean depths, and brought him a message of their safety. So the genius of man has transformed the very lightning of destruction into a messenger of love and joy. “Tt is in the same manner that the genius of man has trans- formed this brutal, this cruel law of evolution into a beneficent agency for his own improvement ; and to explain this is our delight- ful task. “From the dawn of human culture in savagery, to the mid-day of culture in civilization, human genius has been producing many in- ventions for many purposes, and the good have given place to the better, and the better have yielded to the best. “A sheep gathers the grass with his teeth, the ox with his tongue, and the horse with his lips; and teeth, tongues, and lips are modi- fied and developed as these animals struggle for existence. But the savage, just a little higher than the brute, walks through nat- ural meadows, and, with a stick in one hand, beats the grain from TI4 the stalks of grass into a basket held in the other; then, to sepa- rate the grain from the chaff, he tosses it en a tray, that the passing breeze may cleanse it; then the grain is roasted, and ground be- tween stones, one lying on the ground, and another held in the hands, —two mealing-stones; and the flour is spread on a stone, and baked into a cake on the coals. So stick and basket and tray and mealing-stones and baking-stone are the implements and de- vices for gathering and preparing the cereal food of the savage. Then man invents a reaping-hook, then a grain-cradle, then a reaper; and in the process of invention from the sickle to the reaper, What a multitude of inventions are developed! Along this course how many tools, implements, and machines become obsolete and useless, that the one great reaper may remain! Here it is that we have ‘ the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence ;’ and man, by his genius, transfers this struggle from himself to the work of his hands. The way from basket-reaping to power-reaping is long, but all the steps that way have been taken in the endeavor of mankind to secure greater happiness.” Major Powell also illustrated the evolution of the power-thresher from the flail, of the most improved winnowing-machine from the fanning-tray, of the steam or water power flouring-mill from the mealing-stones, etc. “The sheep, the ox, and the horse make their struggle for exist- ence with teeth, tongue, and lips ; but mankind has passed beyond the stage where he must struggle for existence, into that condition where he endeavors to secure greater happiness. ‘Tongue, teeth, and lips are no longer developed along the line of animal evolution ; but human evolution is established by the development of human arts, and this struggle for existence is transferred to painless ob- jects.” This truth was further illustrated by describing the evolution of the chronometer from the clepsydra and the hour-glass, and of the ocean steamship from the raft. “ Among bi-sexual animals, one of the agencies of evolution is sexual selection. Brutes fight with one another for mates, and in the grand aggregate the weaker are killed, and the stronger are preserved to perpetuate their kind ; and various devices are gradu- ally developed for attracting and winning mates, and the forms, colors, and habits of animals are modified thereby. But even in savagery this battle for sexual love is largely avoided, and, that peace may be preserved, marriage institutions are established. It seems at first that men in groups agree to marry women in groups. A group of men holding a group of women in common, defend one another’s rights from violation from without, and live together in peace. On this plan there supervenes another system of institu- tions for marriage, where a group of men are destined to become husbands of a group of women in severalty, and the selections are not made by the parties themselves, but by the elders; that is, where marriage is by legal appointment within prescribed groups. Thus marriage institutions change from age to age, and from state of culture to state of culture, until the highest civilization is reached, where the man marries the woman of his choice on the sole condi- tion that he is the man of her choice, and where the man must have but one wife, and the woman but one husband, and the twain are one in love, in purpose, and in law. But in the course of this evo- lution of marriage institutions, how many customs have obtained, how many agreements have been made, how many laws have been enacted! And along the entire course of the history of marriage institutions, customs and laws have disappeared, that new and bet- ter customs and laws might take their places; and the struggle for mates existing among the lower animals has been replaced by the endeavor to secure peace and happiness in human society. Thus man has transferred the struggle for existence from himself to his institutions. The marriage ceremony of the beast with his mate is a battle with a rival: the marriage of a man with his mate is a festival of kindreds and friends. And wherever any vestige of the beastly struggle remains in human society, there crime is committed, and the course of human evolution is checked. The way from com- munal marriage to monogamy and personal choice is very long, but every step in it has been taken by man in his endeavor to secure greater happiness.” The evolution of institutions was further shown by the establish- ment of authority, the history of which was traced from the elder- SCGIENEGE. [Vot. XI. No, 266 right through the right of the noble, by constant and long endeayor, into the right of the representative. “Comparing animals with men, among the brutes rights and du- ties are distributed by hoofs and claws and horns and fangs, and by all brutal powers; but among men rights and duties are dis- tributed by institutions. “In this brief review of the growth of institutions, it is observed that forms of government are ever changing, that the constitution of the State is ever changing, and that the laws are ever chan- ging. As these changes proceed, better institutions are selected by men; and thusis secured a ‘survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence’ among institutions. In civilization man does not struggle with man for existence; but by the invention of institu- tions he emancipates himself from the reign of terror inherent in brutal competition, and transfers the struggle from himself to the institutions of his creation. “All of this statement may be summarized in this manner: man does not compete with plants and animals for existence, for he emancipates himself from that struggle by the invention of arts; and, again, man does not compete with his fellow-man for exist- ence, for he emancipates himself from that brutal struggle by the invention of institutions. Animal evolution arises out of the strug- gle for existence ; human evolution arises out of the endeavor to secure happiness: it is a conscious effort for improvement in con- dition. “ But arts and institutions alone have not secured the evolution of mankind, for they have been powerfully aided by two other classes of human invention, — namely, linguistics and opinions, — and the part which they have taken must be mentioned.” Major Powell then showed that the same struggle for existence, and the same survival of the fittest by human selection, which have been found among inventions, and again among institutions, may be discovered among languages and linguistic methods and devices. “By human endeavor, man has created speech, by which he may express his thoughts. And out of this endeavor, in all lands and in all time, the unorganized languages of savages have been developed into the languages of modern civilization ; and all this progress, all this evolution, is by human endeavor; and init natural selection, as that term is understood in biology, has played no part. “ Along the course of human progress opinions have been chan- ging. The cruelty of nature in biotic evolution has been set forth. In this figure of speech, Nature is personified, and, if we still per- sonify Nature, to the savage man Nature was ever a deceiver and a cheat. “Nature tells the savage that the earth is flat, over which the sky is arched as a solid dome; then Nature tells the savage that the sun travels over the flat earth, and under the sky of ice, by day from east to west, and returns again in a cave by night from west to east; then Nature tells the savage that the rain comes from the melting of the ice of the sky. Many, strange, foolish, and false are the stories that Nature tells to the untutoredsavage. Nature is the Gul- liver of Gullivers, the Munchausen of Munchausens. Nature teaches men to believe in wizards and in ghosts. Nature fills the human mind with foolish superstitions and horrible beliefs. The opinions of the natural man fill him with many fears, give him many pains, and cause him to commit many crimes. Out of all these savage super— stitions, man has travelled along way into the light of science. And how shall the opinions of modern civilization be characterized ? And who can tell how the knowledge of the highest civilization transcends the knowledge of the lowest savagery? And so opin- ions have been changing, —old opinions have died, and new opin- ions have been born, — and philosophies have struggled for exist- ence as man has endeavored to learn; and with man forever the struggle to know has been the endeavor to secure happiness, for truth is good, and wisdom is joy. “ Attention has already been called to the fact that among the lowest forms of life there exists a marvellous rate of reproduction. As life advances, and plants and animals are developed, the powers of reproduction are curtailed, until man in the highest civilization, and in the highest culture of that civilization, is reached, when the rate of reproduction is at a minimum. In this state of culture the transfer of the struggle for existence from man to the works of his creation is completed. With this transfer there occurs another of — Marcu 9g, 1888. | wonderful nature. The marvellous powers of reproduction are transferred from the body of man to the soul of man, and he multi- plies his intellectual creations at an amazing rate. Arts are multi- plied to secure the joys of life, institutions are multiplied to secure justice, linguistics are multiplied to secure mental communication, and multiplied truths are discovered, so that the body of science is expanding towards the infinite and towards the infinitesimal. “Among the lower animals the law of exercise is potent: the organ which is used is developed; disuse leads to weakness, decay, and ultimate loss. In human evolution the same method of prog- ress by exercise is discovered to be one of the important factors. “ Through the inventions of mankind his mind has been devel- oped. If we review the history of the human race, and fully compre- hend what mental effort has been put forth to invent the arts of civilization and all the arts that have passed away by being super- seded from age to age by better inventions, and fully grasp the mental efforts involved therein, we may comprehend that there is some good reason why the inventor of the electric light is superior to the inventor of the torch, why the inventor of the telegraph is superior to the inventor of the smoke-signal, why the inventor of the machine-shop is superior to the inventor of the flint-factory, why the inventor of the railroad is superior to the inventor of the dog-sled, why the inventor of the newspaper is superior to the in- ventor of a picture-writing on a bone. It has caused some exercise to bring about all the mental evolution which these differences im- plied.” This exercise of the human mind was further illustrated in the organization, and re-organization of States, the enactment of laws to take the places of those that have been repealed, and in the estab- lishment of courts. ‘‘ To invent and apply human institutions, the mind of man has been forever at work, and out of this exercise has come a share of the evolution of the human intellect. “Modern industries have been highly differentiated, or, the polit- ical economists would say, in modern industry there is great divis- ion of labor. By this division of labor men are made interdepend- ent. No man lives for himself, but every man lives for others. “When a man invents a new thresher, it is not that he may thresh his own grain, but that his neighbors may use it, that all the world may have it, and they, in return, may contribute to his hap- piness. If aman invents a new regulation or law, it is not that his own conduct may be regulated thereby, but that some injustice may be removed, or some justice be established, in the relations of the people of the State one to another. The farmer plants a field to raise wheat for his neighbors’ bread, the gardener plants the vine- yard to raise grapes for his neighbors’ wine, the lawyer pleads his neighbors’ cause, the physician gives nepenthe to his neighbors’ pain, the poet writes for his neighbors’ delight, the artist paints for his neighbors’ gallery, and the philosopher expounds for his neigh- bors’ instruction. “ All honest men are working for other men. If a man works exclusively for himself, he is a counterfeiter, or a forger, or a sneak- thief, or perchance a highwayman. All love of industry, all love of integrity, all love of kindred, all love of neighbor, all love of coun- try, and all love of humanity, is expressed in labor for others. For this service thus performed a right to a reward is required, and he for whom the service is performed has imposed upon him the duty to render the reward, and the service is rendered in the hope of the reward. Everywhere in civilized society men are thus working for others. Every man, in all the years of his labor, toils for his fel- low-man, and the practice is universal among all honest civilized men, and lasts from generation to generation ; and universal prac- tice is: gradually becoming crystallized into universal habit. One man is trying to make better houses for his neighbors, another man is trying to make better shoes for his neighbors, another man is trying to make better laws for his neighbors, and another man is trying to make better books for his neighbors. Every man is thus forever dwelling upon the welfare of his neighbors, and making his best endeavor for their good; and thus the habit grows from generation to generation, until at last some men forget that there is reward for service, and labor for their fellow-men because they love their fellow-men. “Tt has been seen that no man works for himself. The counter- part of this is that every man is dependent upon his fellow-man. SCIP NEE, 119 That he may have good and abundant food, he desires the welfare of the farmer; that he may have good clothing, he desires the wel- fare of the manufacturer; that his rights may be maintained, he desires the welfare of the statesman, the jurist, and the administra- tor; that he may have the truth, he desires the welfare of the author; that he may enjoy poetry, he desires the welfare of the poet; and that he may enjoy art, he desires the welfare of the ar- tist. It is thus that man is taught that he who loves the world loves himself, and he who hates the world hates himself. So it is that man toils for others and plans for their welfare, and others toil for him and plan for his welfare; so that every man’s good is bound up with every other man’s good, and every man’s evil is an evil to every other man. And as man forever desires the good of his neighbor for his own sake, from generation to generation the desire for his neighbor’s welfare for his own sake gradually becomes the desire for his neighbor’s welfare for his neighbor’s sake. Thus it is that selfishness is transformed into love, and justice and love are developed into the ethics of mankind. A part of the endeavor of mankind is governed by the principles of political economy, but the greater part is governed by the principles of philanthropy.” Major Powell then discussed competition among civilized men, which differs altogether from that competition which obtains among plants and animals. ‘It is a rivalry among men engaged in the same vocation to render a service to others that the reward may be received. Economic competition has or may have two factors, — emulation and antagonism. By emulation is meant the strife be- tween men for greater excellence, —to perform better service for their fellow-men. By antagonism is meant strife in which man en- deavors to injure his rival tha: he may himself succeed. Emulative competition results in human progress: antagonistic competition results in human retrogression.” The difference between these two kinds of competition was illus- trated by the strife of artists to make the best pictures, by the or- ganization of leagues or schools to instruct one another, and by such an appreciation of common interest in art as leads to great mutual help, and a comradeship that inspires to best endeavors. “Such generous emulation and all its products are in the line of human progress. But jealousies, unjust criticism, carping detrac- tion, and vile slander lead to no progress among mankind. Every success in art creates among laymen an appreciation and love of art in every way beneficial to the artist himself. The natural man, in his ignorance, spurns all works of art. It is the cultured man that loves art; and the culture which brings appreciation and love of art arises from the ethical training which works of art give. In art, demand does not create supply, but supply creates demand. It is thus that the broad-minded artist rejoices in the success of his brother?’ Further illustrations of emulative and antagonistic competition were drawn from the professional classes and from those engaged in agriculture. ‘ The clientage of the latter is large and indefinite. The farmer is not striving to serve his neighbor Jones, but to serve the world. The farmers, too, are of great number ; that is, there are many servants. For these reasons a farmer does not compete with his neighbor or with a number of specified or known persons, but his competition is with the whole body of farmers. For this reason, too, the spirit of antagonistic competition is never born: the competition of farmer with farmer is purely emulative.” These two kinds of competition were still further illustrated by the experience of the large body of people engaged in mining, man- ufacturing, and transporting industries. ‘‘ Among them is both emulative and antagonistic. To avoid the evils of the latter, each class of employers is gradually organizing corporations or trusts ; but by these, emulative competition is also avoided, for the man- agers of business enterprises no longer compete for business, but distribute business by convention. And in the same manner they repeal the law of competition in the labor market; they seek by convention to establish rates of wages. The employees in these same industries also compete with one another in two ways, — by striving to render their labor more efficient by skilled industry, and by offering to labor for smaller wages. The first method of competition is emulative, the second antagonistic. In all civilized society there is no competition so direful in its results, so degrading to mankind, as that which is produced among the 116 employees of these classes who compete for employment by cheapening labor, for it results in overwork which is brutalizing, and in want which is brutalizing; and the abolition of this form of competition is one of the great questions of the day. To avoid the evil, these people organize labor unions, but, while these destroy antagonistic competition, they also result in the destruction of emulative competition. The great problem in indtstrial society to-day is to preserve competition, and destroy antagonistic com- petition. The professional classes have already solved the problem for themselves, and they stand aloof and deplore the struggle; but they should learn this lesson from history: that, when wrongs arise in any class of society, those wrongs must ultimately be righted ; and, so long as they remain, the conflict must remain ; and when the solution comes not by methods of peace, it comes by war. “Injustice is a strange monster. Let any body of people come to see that injustice is done them in some particular, though it may be one which affects their welfare but to a limited degree: they dwell upon it, and discuss it, and paint its hideous form one to an- other, until the spectre of that injustice covers the heavens, and gradually to that injustice the people will attribute all their evils. If a body of laborers receive unjust reward for their toil, they will dwell upon this evil so long, so often, and kindle their passions to such a height, that they will at last attribute to the failure of receiving a modicum of reward for their toil all the evils of their own improvidence, all the evils of their own intemperance, all the evils of their own lust; and if fire and flood come, the very evils of unavoidable misfortune will be attributed to the injustice of unre- quited toil. Injustice is of such a nature that it must be destroyed by society, or it will destroy society. We dare not contemplate its existence with equanimity, for ‘behold, what a great fire a little matter kindleth!’” One of the most interesting illustrations of antagonistic com- petition given was that which exists in advertising. ‘‘ The honest system of advertising should be but a small announcement of the offer of goods for the information of those who desire to purchase, in such a manner that those who desire to purchase, may, by seeking, find. But in advertising as it now exists, exaggeration is piled on exaggeration, and falsehood is added to falsehood. The world is filled with monstrous lies, and they are thrust upon atten- tion by every possible means. The mails are filled with them. When a man opens his mail in the morning, the letter of his friend is buried among these advertising monstrosities. They are thrust under street-doors, and they are offered you as you walk the streets. When you read the morning and evening papers, they are spread before you with typographic display, they are placed among the items you desire to read, and they are given false headings, and they begin with decoy headings. They are posted upon walls, and on the fences, and on the sidewalks, and on bulletin boards, and the barns and housetops and the fences of all the land are covered with them, and they are nailed to the tree and painted on rocks. Thus it is that the whole civilized world is placarded with lies, and the moral atmosphere of the world wreaks with the foul breath of this monster of antagonistic competition.” In closing, Major Powell briefly reviewed the history of the land question in Great Britain, the conversion of the commons in Eng- land into the estates of nobles, until people learned that wanton ex- travagance of life is cured by elevating the poor to a higher condi- tion, where they speedily learn the principles of prudential repro- duction ; and to-day, in that land, statesmen and scholars are de- vising the means by which those great estates may still be distrib- uted among the poor. He also referred to the movements of wages among the laborers in Great Britain, their reduction to the lowest pittance on the plea in justification of the sanction of the im- mutable law of competition. Then there arose a philosophy which sought to ameliorate the condition of the poor people by charity. Still later a new philosophy arose, which taught that the wage- fund was limited, and was sufficient to supply only a limited num- ber of workers ; and so wages were reduced still lower, to be fol- lowed by strikes and riots, which threatened the beautiful isle with anarchy. “And now,” said Major Powell, ‘‘ another philosopher has arisen in the world, the great Herbert Spencer; and he has dis- covered another fundamental principle, a major premise, — that SCIENCE. [Vors XI. ‘Nov 266 human progress is by ‘ the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence.’ That the fittest may survive, the unfit must die. Then let the poor fall into deeper degradation, then let the hungry starve, then let the unfortunate perish, then let the rich and the wise and the good and the strong live and flourish and propagate the race, then let the ignorant remain in his ignorance. He who does not seek for knowledge himself is not worthy to possess knowledge ; and the very children of the ignorant should remain untaught, that the sins of the fathers may be visited upon the children. Let your government cease to regulate industries, and, instead of carrying the mails, let them erect prisons; let governments discharge their state- employed teachers, and enlist more policemen. Such is the philoso- phy of Spencer and his adherents. And they establish journals to advocate these principles, and edit papers to advocate these princi- ples, and they have become the most active propagandists of the day; and the millions are shouting, ‘ Great is philosophy, and great are the prophets of philosophy.’ “Thus it is that fundamental principles, major propositions, are discovered to justify injustice, and yet forever man is endeavoring to establish justice. How this shall be done I know not; but I have such faith in my fellow-man, such towering faith in human endeavor, such boundless faith in the genius for invention among mankind, such illimitable faith in the love of justice that forever wells up in the human heart, that I swear by the eternal truth the problem shall be solved.” Density of the Earth. The following is an abstract of a paper read by Mr. G. W. Hill at the last meeting of the Mathematical Section of the Philosophi- cal Society : — The relation which, according to Boyle’s law, holds between the pressure and the density of the atmosphere or a gas under a uniform temperature, is so simple, that we are naturally curious to see the results of its application to the mass of the earth. The greater difficulty of the problem over that in which Laplace’s law of density is employed may recommend it to us as a mathemat- ical exercise. The differential equation, which is satisfied by the density, is readily obtained by uniting the general equation of hydrostatics with the partial differential equation which the potential function at interior points satisfies. By certain substitutions the question is reduced to the integration of a differential equation of the first order and the subsequent quadrature. Unfortunately the first operation cannot be executed in finite terms, but the application of mechani- cal quadratures to the equation is quite easy. The differential equation defines a system of plane curves readily constructed by drawing their tangents at points suitably distributed. These curves fall into three groups, of which one takes up the space to the right of the vertical axis of co-ordinates, and is the only one applicable to the physical question under consideration. A first illustration of the general theory is afforded by treating the density of the atmosphere considered as surrounding a spheri- cal earth, in which one does not neglect, as usual, the attraction of the atmosphere on itself. Passing to the problem afforded by the mass of the earth, the construction of a single one of the formerly mentioned group of planes, and the summing of a definite integral along its line, is seen to contain the solution of the whole matter. . A general table is then formed, from which we can obtain all the data needed for applying the general theory to any particular case. Assuming the surface density as 2.7, and the mean density as 5.67, the density at the centre comes out 21.7, and at half the sur- face radius 9.4. If the mean density is more than fifteen-fourths the surface densi- ty, there is no solution. If the mean density is exactly three times that at the surface, the number of solutions is infinite. For the case of the earth considered above, there is only one solu- tion. Submarine Oil-Springs. The Hydrographic Office publishes upon the Pilot Chart for March some late information concerning submarine oil-springs on Marcu 9, 1888. | the Pacific coast. The best known of these is off what is known as *Coal-Oil Point,’ about one and one-fourth miles west of Goleta, and ten miles west of Santa Barbara. Captain Van Helmes, of the American steamship ‘ Los Angeles,’ says that when a vessel passes through this region the smell of the oil is so strong as frequently to cause nausea among passengers and crew, and in certain spots the oil can be distinctly seen bubbling up on the surface. Captain Wallace, of the American steamship ‘ City of Chester,’ has also seen oil floating on the water to the north of Cape Mendocino, from three to five miles off shore, and thinks there is another spring there. Captain Plummer, of the American steamship ‘ Gipsy,’ says the belt of oil above Santa Barbara can be seen on the darkest night when sailing through it. Captain Goodall, of the Pacific Steamship Company, says of the region off Coal-Oil Point, that on a calm day the water is covered for miles with oil, bubbles of which can be seen rising to the surface and spreading over it. Although it does not seem to smooth the water like animal oil, yet, on a windy day, one can see a smooth slick of oil on the surface. This spot is so well known by shipmasters, that the smell of the oil is used as a guide in foggy weather, the petroleum smell being so strong that a captain can never mistake his position when off that point. Captain Goodall says, also, that he has noticed a small flow of oil from the bottom of the sea off Cojo Point, near Point Concep- tion, but there the amount of oil is very small. It cannot be seen bubbling from the bottom, but is often visible on the surface, the odor being very perceptible. HEALTH MATTERS. Scarlet-Fever. THE following striking instance, illustrating the communicability of scarlet-fever, is sent us by Dr. George E. Goodfellow of Tomb- stone, Arizona, in answer to the letter of inquiry sent by Sczence some months ago : — “JT came to Prescott, Arizona, in 1876. At that time I was in- formed by physicians residing there for a number of years, that, to their knowledge, no case of scarlet-fever ever had been known either in the town or surrounding country. Prescott is a pleasant little mountain town of central Arizona, and at that time had a popu- lation of about eighteen hundred, and had been then, and is now, considered to be unusually free from disease. The altitude is about 5,800 feet. There was no sewerage system, nor was one needed. In this climate of the South-West, owing to the dryness of the atmosphere, excrementitious material desiccates so rapidly, and the residents are so unaccustomed to the vile odors of civilization, that they never have realized the necessity of supplying the pabulum of putrefaction, in the shape of water, to their sewage. There was not a foul-smelling outhouse in the town, save around the saloons and some restaurants ; and there, be it noted, noone lived; neither was any one there, taken sick in the epidemic, to be recounted. I speak-thus authoritatively of the condition of the village, for I was appointed health-officer, therefore knew the state of things. One more preliminary statement. Of the people living in Prescott and the encompassing neighborhood, almost all were considered as old residents; that is, they had emigrated to Arizona about 1862-64, mostly from the Pacific coast. There was comparatively little im- migration into the Territory from 1868 to 1876-77. By reason of this, the children imported from California left that State before the advent there extensively of scarlet-fever and kindred diseases, and were now grown to manhood and womanhood without ever having had any of the contagious diseases of childhood. Many of these, particularly the girls, were married and had children; and it was among these children that the disease which proved so fatal started, Whatever the differences of opinion concerning the first cases, which made their appearance in May or June, 1877, the nature and malig- nancy of the fever were soon conceded by even the most sceptical. It was scarlet-fever in its most malignant form, and, if I recollect aright, it swept away between twenty and thirty children in that small burg before it ceased. But it was not confined to the chil- dren: the parents, particularly the young mothers, as described above, contracted the fever in all grades of severity, though usually ina mild form. There was a family, prominent in the place, with three children, aged from two to eight. I was the medical attend- SCGrEN GE: 117 ant. The eldest contracted the disease first, and in a few days the others had it. Two of them died about the seventh day, — the two younger ones. The other ultimately recovered. Owing to the popularity of the family, a large number of visitors, sympathizing friends, and curious neighbors, as is usual in small towns, had filled the place, spite of all protests from the physician, from the begin- ning of the trouble until the sad ending. Of the immediate friends, a large number were of the younger class heretofore described, that never had had scarlet-fever. Of these, the majority were taken down with some form of sickness related to the disease. Most of them had the fever outright, but some only had severe sore throats. The father, mother, consulting physician, and myself were all at- tacked. Whether I ever had had the fever, I do not know. The father, two young men, and myself, who had been closely in contact with the children from the beginning of their illness, lay at the point of death for some days; and, of all who were in the house, not one escaped without some manifestation of the disease. Thus effectually was the fever spread. It seems to me this is a striking illustration of the communicability of the disease. Of course, the objection may be raised, the sanitary conditions of the house were not good. But they were. The house was a new one, a year old, of wood, set up from the ground by short two-by-four scantling, so that the wind had an elegant chance to ventilate the building. There was no cesspool, or foul locus of any sort, in the neighbor- hood. It was, in fact, an ideally clean place. Some of those who had typical cases of the fever were twenty-four and twenty-five years of age. “Now, here was an epidemic, which, so far as we knew at tne beginning, had no antecedent case to initiate it. My subsequent investigations settled that point. It was ascertained that the pre- vious year, at Fort Whipple, an army post near the edge of town, there had been some cases of what the post surgeon pronounced scarlet-fever. Thus died the case of the de movoites. At any rate, the onus proband? of origin was put on the preceding year’s cases. Where they came from, never was shown certainly ; but as some families had recently joined the station, coming from infected points, it was a natural supposition to conclude that they brought it with them. This isthe strongest concatenation of circumstances, derived from personal observation, I can give. I have not entered into details showing absence of other sources of contagion in the persons attacked. This must be assumed as having been estab- lished at the time.” VACCINATION STATISTICS.— The following extract from 7he Sanztartan would seem to indicate that a compulsory vaccination law has its advantages: ‘‘ The success of the anti-vaccinationists is aptly shown by the results in Zurich, Switzerland, where for a number of years, until 1883,a compulsory vaccination law obtained, and small- pox was wholly prevented (not a single case occurred in 1882), This result was seized upon in the following” year by the anti-vac- cinationists, and used against the necessity for any such law, and it seems they had sufficient influence to cause its repeal. The death returns for that year (1883) showed that for every thousand deaths two. were caused by small-pox; in 1884, there were three; in 1885, seventeen ; and in the first quarter of 1886, eighty-five.” BLOOD-CHANGES. — The Paris correspondent of the ew York Medical Journal says that the application of spectroscopy to the study of pathological alterations in the blood is receiving considerable attention in that city. So far, the considerable expense of the large instruments employed has to a great extent prevented any use being made in medicine of the principal characteristics of the coloring- matter of the blood, either in the normal or in the pathological state ; but a late invention of Dr. Hénocque’s places in the hands of the medical profession a handy, portable hamato-spectroscope, that will almost go into a waistcoat pocket, and with which a spectral analysis, both qualitative and quantitative, of heemoglobin and its de- rivatives (oxyhemoglobin, methemoglobin, etc.), can be made at the bedside. But it will be asked, What is the advantage of knowing this? Well, it has been proved to be of the utmost importance in the study of the variations of the activity of the reduction of oxyhamo- globin in health and in disease. This Dr. Hénocque makes us see with his instrument applied to the thumb, A small elastic-band ligature is tied around the lower part of the thumb, and on the 118 Serie CE. hzmatoscope being applied to the nail, which is exposed to the usual daylight (as strong as possible, but that from a house-window is enough), the energy of the exchange going on between oxygen and the tissues can be seen. This new idea is of great practical importance in the study of the phenomena of nutrition, both in physiological and in pathological states; so that such physicians as Professor Germain Sée are now taking the matter up and applying it to the study of many pathological states, such as anemia, etc. Dr. Hénocque is one of Professor Brown-Séquard’s best men. He has given the results of some three hundred and seventy cases in which experiments were made. BOOK-REVIEWS. Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research. Vol. i. No. 3, 1887. THE appearance of Miss Fletcher’s paper upon ‘ The Supernatural among the Omaha Tribe of Indians,’ in the Proceedings of the Psychic Research Society, is of importance, because it shows that this society is in part readv to take the anthropological view of such notions, to find their interest in the recording of such popular be- liefs as a contribution to tKe statistics of human thought with no more reference to their possible objective verification than is neces- sary to shed light upon their origin. Apart from this, Miss Fletch- er’s paper is extremely interesting as showing the naturalness with which the supernatural enters into the every-day life of unenligh- tened people. It is also noteworthy that the Omaha ghost lets him- self be heard so much more than seen, while with us the reverse is the case. This fact is very suggestive, and several aids to an ex- planation present themselves. It is also worth mentioning how little the evolution of terror is associated with the ‘ ghost-noises’ of the Omahas. All those who have followed the eventful career of the ‘ Phan- tasms of the Living ’— the depository of the work of the English Psychic Research Society — will read with interest the controversy between Mr. C. S. Peirce, the well-known mathematician and logi- cian, and Mr. Edmund Gurney. The former makes a detailed enumeration of all such cases regarded by Mr. Gurney and his as- sociates as a proof of spontaneous telepathy, and shows that a large proportion of these suffer from serious omissions and fallacies, mainly sinning against the principles of the logic of induction. This brings a lengthy reply from Mr. Gurney, and a still longer rejoinder from Mr. Peirce. The discussion turns upon details, and must be read in full. Two points may be briefly noticed. The first relates to the estimation of the probability of acertain thought occurring to our minds within a given period. This is always a delicate task; and, as so much of our mental activity goes on in the region of the unconscious, it seems safer to make a very liberal estimate in this regard ; and, if we do this, a larger number of coincidences of such presentiments as the death of a friend (as prompted by an unde- fined feeling about his welfare) with the actual occurrence will be attributable to chance. It is through the neglect of this considera- tion that the evidential value of many of the best cases is decidedly weakened. Next, as Mr. Peirce well argues, if we admit that the cases as they stand defy explanation by ordinary reasoning, it is very easy to invent half a dozen hypotheses explaining the facts as well as does the telepathic theory, and in the minds of many people by no means as improbable as the latter. The reports of the several committees are more than usually sat- isfactory. The report of the committee on thought-transferrence, apart from an injudicious closing paragraph, is a frank confession of negative results. The committee on experimental psychology, of which Dr. C. S. Minot is the chairman, give the results of their inquiries as to the prevalence of a feeling sufficiently strong to in- fluence action with reference (1) to sitting down thirteen at table, (2) to beginning a voyage on Friday, (3) to seeing the new moon over your left shoulder. The results are, that both in men and in women the most prevalent superstition is (3); the least prevalent is (1); and that about one man in ten, and two women in ten, ac- knowledge a belief in these superstitions. Furthermore, the ques- tion, whether in choosing between two otherwise equally desirable houses you would be influenced by the reputation of the one as haunted, is answered in the affirmative by forty-four men and sixty- [Vot. XI. No, 266 six women in one hundred; but it should be added that a large number place this choice on accessory grounds, and not on the hauntedness of the house. Whether these statistics will be taken as marking the prevalence of frankness or of real superstition, must be left for each to decide. The reports on haunted houses and on mediumistic phenomena presents few points of interest. The opposite is true of Mr. Cory’s admirable observations on hypnotic phenomena. Only a single observation of the many ingenious tests devised by Mr. Cory can here be given. The fact that some hypnotic subjects can associate a suggested hallucination with a blank card, is explained by sup- posing that some trifling irregularity on the card serves to their hypersensitive senses as the direct excitant of the hallucination. This Mr. Cory supports, and really proves. A pencil with one end slightly nicked is placed on end ona mantel, and the subject is given the suggestion that nothing is upon the mantel. Then eleven other precisely similar pencils are placed on the mantel, when the subject is asked to count them, and counts eleven. A strip of board is so held as to cover the nick on the one pencil, and under this condition the subject counts twelve, showing that the sight of the nick sets the mind so as not to count that pencil. This valuable number of the Proceedings is concluded with two notes from the pen of Prof. William James. In the first, Professor James gives the results of experiments upon the ‘ re-action time’ in the hypnotic state; showing that it is at times longer, and at times shorter, than in the normal state, and that a more detailed analysis of the kind of hypnosis is necessary to explain these results. The other brings together a number of important facts concerning the ‘consciousness of lost limbs.’ LEDGRERS OSG Ee DIMOR: *.* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer's name is in allcases required as proof of good faith. Twenty copies of the number containing his communication will be furnished Sree to any correspondent on request. ‘re editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. Diamonds in Meteorites. ON Sept. 4, 1886, a meteoric stone weighing about four pounds fell at Novy Urej, Krasnoslobodsk, in the Government of Penza, Siberia. In this MM. Latchinoff and Jorefeif found what they supposed to be diamonds of microscopic size. In an insoluble residue small corpuscles, showing traces of polarization, were harder than corundum, and having the density and other charac- teristics of the diamond, and were present to the amount of one per cent of the whole mass (see Mature, Dec. 1, 1887). Through the courtesy of his Excellency Julien V. Siemaschko of St. Peters- burg, I have been able to procure a small piece of the meteorite. Mr. H. Hensoldt, section-cutter at the School of Mines, very kindly prepared sections of the same, which I found to contain metallic iron in small thin plates, magnetite in small opaque grains, a pla- gioclase felspar, and olivine in oval grains, but was unable to detect any of these bodies in the sections. Prof. H. Carvill Lewis, to whom I sent the material, informed me that he had extracted two small oval bodies, almost isotropic, and showing no more traces of polarization than occur in many diamonds. With some other fragments of the meteorite, and not with these, he made two good scratches on a polished sapphire. He did not mount the crystals, because they were again lost : so I could not examine them. He was, however, inclined to support the views of the describers. I found, that, by grinding with a sapphire four particles of the meteorite, I distinctly made a number of minute but deep scratches on each polished face of four different sapphires with each piece of meteorite. These scratches are characteristic of but one mineral that we know, and that is the diamond ; but they are evidently so minute, that they form a coating or an aggregate over the other minerals, and were too small to distinguish, but yet exist in quan- tity, and may also possibly be the amorphous form of the diamond known as carbon or carbonado(?) Small pieces of the meteorite were then boiled‘ for some time in hydrochloric, sulphuric, and nitro-muriatic acids. This readily removed all of the iron and mag- netite, leaving only the skeletons of olivine, on which were small black particles, one of which was elongated but rounded, suggest- ing two joined cubes(?) On crushing one of these olivine pieces — Marcu 9, 1888. | with black crystals attached, and grinding it with a polished sapphire, it readily scratched the same. If a larger quantity of material comes to hand, the writer will have polished a diamond with the powder of the meteorite, using a new wheel for the purpose. The writer has not seen the paper of MM. Latchinoff and Jorefeif, but there seems to be every reason to substantiate their conclusions. These facts are of especial interest, since on Jan. 15, 1887, Prof. L. Fletcher, curator of the Mineralogical Department of the British Museum, read before the Mineralogical Society of England a paper on a meteorite which was found in the sub-district of Youndegin, Australia, in 1884, and in which he stated he had found a new form of graphite of cubic form, with the hardness of 2.5 and a ‘specific gravity of 2.12. To this he gave the name of ‘cliftonite,’ calling attention, also, to the fact that Haidinger, in 1846, had found what he described as graphite pseudomorph after iron pyrites (Poggendorf Annalen, 1846, \xvii. p. 437), obtained by him from a nodule of graphite which had dropped out of the Arva meteorite. Gustav Rose (Beschreibung und Enthetlung der Meteoriten, 1864, p. 40; Poggendorf Annalen, 1873) expressed an opinion that this mode of replacement of the cube edges on these crystals was suggestive of holo-symmetry rather than hemi-symmetry, and that this interpretation would exclude iron pyrites as a possible antece- dent mineral. The cliftonite was readily examined with a 4-inch objective ; and from its structure Professor Fletcher concluded, that, while it is dif- ferent from native graphite, the sharpness, separateness, and com- pleteness of the crystal, the brightness of the faces, the delicacy of the acicular projections, and especially of the obtuse, almost flat, square pyramids, or some of the faces, are quite sufficient to prove that the form has never had any other than its present tenants; in other words, that it is not a pseudomorph. When in cubes, the diamond has faces not very unlike those of the Youndegin crystals, and shows a similar bevelling of its edges by the rounded tetrahex- edra. Again: Professor Fletcher says it might be argued, that, during a hurried crystallization of the carbon, circumstances initial- ly favorable to the formation of the diamond had finally permitted the existence of carbon in a graphitic form only. He had also found distinct graphitic crystals, cube octahedrous in form, in the Cocke and Sevier County (Tenn.) meteorites. When we consider that only a few meteorites have been exam- ined for this mineral, we have reason to expect some interesting results in the future. GEORGE F. KUNZ, New York, March 6. A Pseudo-Meteorite. THROUGH the kindness of Dr. DeWitt Webb of St. Augustine, Fla., I have been able to examine a portion of the so-called ‘ meteor- ic stone,’ weighing over two hundred pounds, which was said to have been seen to fall in an old cultivated field near Middleburgh, Clay County, Fla., and which was exhibited at the Subtropical Ex- position at Jacksonville, Fla. It is a concretionary limonite, and not of meteoric origin. GEORGE F. KUNZ. New York, March 6. Monocular vs. Binocular Vision. AS a constant student of binocular phenomena, I have been much interested in Mr. Hyslop’s letter in Sczence of Feb. 10. I have repeated the experiment illustrated by his Fig. 1, and con- firmed his results. But I do not think they are to be explained by any supposed struggle between monocular and binocular vision, but in a far more obvious way, which, in fact, he himself suggests. In binocular combination of such simple figures as circles, where the means of estimating distance is reduced to ocular convergence alone, the estimate is veryimperfect and uncertain. Our knowledge so interferes with our visual judgment that we are apt to over-esti- mate the distance. In fact, many persons even find a difficulty in seeing the combined binocular image any nearer than the two mo- nocular images. As long as attention is fixed on the combined cir- cle, the homogeneous image of the needle will seem beyond, as it ought. This will be much more distinct if we range the point of sight back and forth, combining successively the needle-points and the circles. But when we transfer attention wholly to the double images of the needle, these latter will sometimes appear nearer SCIENCE: 119 than the circle; not, however, because the needle seems nearer than before, but because the circle drops to the plane of the paper, where it tends to go, anyhow. The experiment illustrated by his second figure I cannot confirm. It is true that experiment with his figures as drawn in Sczemce con- firms his results, but this is only because the figures are badly drawn. The positions of the two small circles 6 and ¢ are not symmetrical. When accurately drawn, I find, on combining, that the small circle and the large circle appear exactly on the same plane. My son, aged eighteen, and well practised in binocular ex- periments, confirms my results perfectly. Whether Mr. Hyslop’s original figures were imperfect, or have been only badly copied, I know not ; but the wonderful distinctness with which binocular combination will bring out and exaggerate the smallest differences in apparently similar figures, is well known. JOSEPH LECONTE. Berkeley, Cal., Feb. 22. The Scientific Swindler Again. THE following from the Zudéanapolzs Journal of Feb. 24 may be of interest to those who have been the victims of the swindler so extensively advertised by your own and other journals: ‘“ The book-thief who has, under the names of W. R. Taggart, Professor Cameron, Professor Douglass, and various a/zases, travelled over the country, representing himself as a scientific student, and borrow- ing valuable books, has been arrested in Cincinnati, where he gave the name of Otto Syrski. He was recognized yesterday by Profes- sor Collett of this city, who was one of his victims. Professor Col- let learned where his books had been sold, and will probably recover them.” It is to be hoped that this will stop his operations, at least for a time. A. W. BUTLER. Brookville, Ind., March 1. A Critique of Psycho-Physic Methods. DR. JOSEPH JASTROW, in the second number of the /oursal of Psychology, discusses the principal psycho-physic methods now in use, and advocates a thorough reform of the science of psycho- physics. One of the principal conclusions at which he arrives is that no such thing as a differential threshold exists; that is to say, that there is no definite point at which the difference of two sensa- tions ceases to be perceptible. Dr. Jastrow’s arguments fail to con- vince us. He says, ‘‘ The threshold is described as a point not ex- actly constant, but nearly so: above it all differences can be felt, below it all differences vanish into unconsciousness. No matter whether little or much below this point, they are utterly lost. It is idle to say, as Fechner at times does, that they differ in the amount of additional stimulation necessary to bring them up into conscious- ness, unless you mean that the series below the so-called threshold is an exact continuation of the series above it ; and, if you do mean this, then the threshold loses all its distinguishing peculiarities, and ceases to exist.” Further on, in discussing the theory of the right and wrong cases, he says, ‘It has been proved that the ratio of wrong answers increases as the difference between the stimuli decreases ; but the ‘ threshold theory claims that this last fails to hold after this difference has been diminished below a certain ratio.” In considering these objections, I may be allowed to treat two classes of sensations separately : first, the judgment that a difference exists is based on a sudden change in the character of the sensation either in space or time; second, the judgment refers to sensations separate in space or time or in both. As an example of the former, we may assume two adjoining fields of various colors or various in- tensities of light, or a sound suddenly increasing in intensity or height. The threshold theory says there is a certain difference be- tween these adjoining sensations below which no difference will be perceived. Practically this is admitted by Jastrow. In trying to meet such an argument, he first says that there exists only an aver- age threshold ; i.e., the average smallest perceptible proportion of intensity or wave-length of the two sensations on which the ob- server is able to form a judgment. Hecontinues, ‘Here you either (1) tacitly assume that not many observations are to be taken, or that (2) no matter how many observations were made, no mistake would ever occur.” The arguments of the advocates of the threshold heory are {120 somewhat different from what Jastrow would make us believe. In the first class of sensations there are two reasons for the existence of a threshold, — a physiological and a psychological. As a bal- ance has a certain limit of accuracy beyond which it does not show differences of weight of two bodies, so our organs of sensation are not able to show differences between stimuli varying only to a very small extent. This is the physiological threshold. But, besides, the advocate of the threshold theory says it is necessary that the sensations should differ to a certain degree, else they cannot be dis- tinguished. He does not say, however, as Jastrow assumes, that the magnitude of this least perceptible difference is the same at any moment. On the contrary, it depends on the state of mind of the person, and varies just as Jastrow’s sensibility varies, every moment having its own threshold, the average of which is the aver- age threshold of the observer. The theory of the threshold may be summed up in the following remarks : — Two sensations are given, the difference of whichis to be judged upon. The judgment can have various characteristics. Either a certain phenomenon is observed which has no immediate connec- tion with the sensations to be compared (for instance, the line divid- ing two fields of various colors is observed), or the sensations are separate in space and time. In this case the conception of the former is compared with the latter sensation. In the former case the physiological threshold is the main consideration, and for this reason it may be omitted in these brief remarks. In the latter case let the sensations S, and S, be given, which are produced by the stimulis, and s,. Let S, be the first to be ob- served. In making the comparison, S, will not be correctly re- membered ; but the probability that another and similar sensation, Sx, which would correspond to the stimulus sx, is produced, will be LY = I Ce Sty ©) ES; Sx the constant depending upon the conditions of the experiment. Experiments show that increases when the difference between 5, and s, decreases. Further experiments show that when the two stimuli s, and s, differ but slightly, in a great number of cases the observer will judge S,—.S,. According to the theory of prob- ability, is only very small as compared to all other possible re- productions. Therefore the only possible explanation of the fact that the judgment S, = S, is comparatively frequent, is, that not only in those instances when the conception S, is reproduced are both judged to be identical, but that sensations varying only slight- ly from S, cannot be distinguished from it ; and the task of psycho- physic methods is to find the limits of these variations. Mathe- matically the number of observations in which both sensations are considered the same is expressed by the following formula : — ae +0, W, =f FG, 51, © as. s,— Oo 6, and dare the upper and lower thresholds respectively. This explanation agrees exactly with the observed fact, that slightly dif- ferent stimuli cannot be distinguished; and Jastrow’s objections are founded on a misconception of the mathematical basis of the theory. No advocate of the threshold theory assumes, as Jastrow supposes, that below the threshold the probability of a greater error is the same as that of a smaller error. In another passage of his critique, Jastrow rejects the use of doubtful cases in the theory of right and wrong cases. It seems to me that his objections cannot be accepted. The fact is, that in a number of cases doubtful answers must be given. In his paper he says, and rightly, that the confidence is increasing with the differ- ence of the sensations. Now, the answer ‘ doubtful’ is nothing else than an expression of the degree of confidence; and, according to the above formula, the proper way to include these answers. in the theory is to assume a second threshold which shows the limit of doubtful cases, and this has been successfully done. It will easily be seen that variations of a sensation such as as- sumed by the theory outlined above always occur, and that they must prevail in all psycho-physic experiments except in the first class. SCHENCE. [Vot. XI. No 266 Dr. Jastrow’s suggestion to measure the sensibility by psycho- physic methods is a good one. It has been successfully applied for measuring various degrees of attention, and the writer fully agrees with Dr. Jastrow’s opinion that this is the most promising field of psycho-physic research, DR. FRANZ BOAS. New York, March r. American and Foreign Microscopes. My attention having been called to the ‘Complaint’ in Sczence for Dec. 2, 1887, and the following articles on microscopes, the facts did not seem to me fully presented therein. I immediately addressed the following questions to more than twenty of the lead- ing colleges of the country, the Department of Agriculture, Geolog- ical Survey, and Microscopical Society of Washington, D.C., and Messrs. Wolle and Smith, two of the oldest microscopists in the country. The results are herewith presented, with my own ideas on the subject. The questions were, 1. How many microscopes of American make have you? [659.] 2. How many of foreign make? [434.] 3. How many without a joint? [309.] 4. Do your students work standing, or sitting? 5. Is the instrument used in an in- clined position to any extent ? The figures in brackets give the sums total of the replies. Penn- sylvania University reports 100 American, 3 foreign; Michigan, 120 American, 30 foreign. Of the foreign instruments, 108 belong to Harvard, and 135 to Bryn Mawr, Johns Hopkins, and Massachu- setts Institute of Technology. About 40 jointed instruments are reported used in the upright position; more than two-thirds of the whole number are used inclined. To No. 4, the answer “ Sitting,” is almost universal; “Standing or sitting,” afew. The following extracts from the replies are pertinent :— “T prefer to work it upright, and teach my students so, but they will incline it whenever possible.” “When long at work, I prefer a vertical tube; but I find for young students the inclined position and the rack and pinion ex- tremely desirable.” “Only by unfortunates. Of course, the joint is a convenience, but is not, in my opinion, essential.” — HARVARD COLLEGE, in answer to No. 5. “ The instruments are used almost exclusively in the upright po- sition, the tables being low enough to permit of such use with ease.” — UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA. “Mostly foreign instruments, generally inclined, prefer inclined ; would use it inclined if I could” [of upright instruments]. — GEO- LOGICAL SURVEY. “The latest purchases are American, which are now preferred.” — ALBANY. “Personally, I believe the best instruments are made in this country.” — UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. “In my laboratory (physiology and hygiene), we use forty. I bought the first in 1876, foreign because then cheaper. In four years they were all worthless. We then bought American: they have stood more rough usage, and had fewer repairs necessary, than any others. My work is especially trying on account of the frequency with which acids must be used.” “T believe the eye is more nearly in its normal and best position when the microscope is inclined.’ — PRINCETON. “« My constant companion at my table is Zentmayer’s army micro- scope. Have used it twelve or more years, always inclined, or very rarely vertical.” — F. WOLLE. “Twenty-five years ago I got Powell and Lealand’s stands. I seldom use their objectives. For long years I have preferred Amer- ican objectives. I have recently seen letters from purchasers of Zeiss apochromatics, confessing that Spencer’s most recent glasses fully hold their own, and at less prices.” — H. L. SMITH. “The facility to incline when needed is indispensable.’ —J. G. HUNT. In 1862 I saw much of Dr. Hunt, then unsurpassed as a histolo- gist. He used a Beck best, inclined, in continuous daily work. His experience assisted in the construction of the American Centennial instrument, which he has since used. This is an instance of an elaborate tool employed in actual, original, and long-continued work. After this came the Beck International, costing seventeen Marcu 9g, 1888. | hundred dollars, and with the most elaborate accessories ever offered to the public, — no doubt ‘ brazen elephantiasis,’ but not an American instrument. The latest Zeiss instruments brought to this city have just the same nickle plating and lacquer as the American; and without lacquer any instrument would be soon worthless. In 1860 I used a French upright, then successively a Nachet best, Zentmayer, Beck small best, Popular, and in my laboratory Bausch and Lomb Model and Harvard. In 1875 I brought over a lot of Zeiss’s work. I use the inclined position always, except for watch-glasses, or such large vessels. Have used fluids contantly, on tissues, in the examination of fibres according to Vetillart, and numberless examinations of urine, as well as chemical work. The capillary attraction between cover and slide is sufficient, as a rule, to hold all that is required. I do not see that the disclaimer in the last article affects the state- ments made in the ‘Complaint.’ Histological work is the investiga- tion of the minute structure of plants and animals, and this is just what microscopes are made and used for in this country in biologi- cal laboratories and by practising physicians. The number of ama- teurs is very small, and, of instruments used for petrographical and chemical work exclusively, still smaller. In the Washington society, twenty-six members are physicians, nearly all in practice, seven are teachers and investigators, and seven are amateurs. The American stand has been developed from, and has re-acted upon, the English stand, —a different and radically better type than the German. There are probably as many microscopes made and used by English-speaking people as by all the rest of the world. A Beck was exhibited at one of the late meetings of the Washing- ton Society numbered over 15,000. This means over that number of jointed instruments in use, of one English maker, of which about one-third are in this country. The latest Zeiss here is 11,468 (August), and all but his lowest styles have a joint. Most English microscopes have a joint, —a feature of the Ger- mans first despised, then condemned, and finally adopted. The jointed stand does all that the upright does, and much that the up- right cannot do. The cost of the joint is about two dollars. The Zeiss stand VII, a and 4, is said by Zeiss to be ‘especially suitable for laboratory use.” It has no joint. Itsstage is 67 by 72 mm., and 86 mm. high. The price, with two objectives and two eye- pieces, is $34; with another objective, $41. The Zentmayer Histo- logical (American) was put on the market in 1876. It has a joint. Its stage is 65 by 95 mm., and 76mm. high. With one eye-piece and two objectives and case, it costs $38 and $46. The Bausch and Lomb Harvard has a stage 85 by 90 mm., and 82 mm. high. With two ob- jectives and two eye-pieces, the price is $43. It is well known that the discounts here are larger than on foreign catalogue prices; and in quantity these American instruments, with lower and broader stages than the foreign instruments of equal grade, can be purchased cheap- er. No one is obliged to buy a slide-carrier unless wanted. It is priced separate. The glass slip stage was an American invention, was adopted by the French and English makers, and is stated by Dr. Carpenter, in his last edition, ‘to be the most perfect yet devised.” The Iris diaphragm is not generally applied by American makers to college microscopes. The prices of German low-power objectives are less than Ameri- can, but high powers are dearer. A Zeiss}; costs $90, a 34 $112 to $140, to which must be added the cost of special eye-pieces. A Spen- cer first-class dry 3; costs $60, a 4; homo immersion $80, both high angle; a professional 4 of 175 B.A., $40. If these prices are aver- aged with the low powers, the American lenses are cheapest, with- out any regard to duty. We want three classes of microscopes, — the college, the professional, and the complete. The first may have less finish and no substage fittings, the second with substage fittings and better finish, the third with graduated circles, etc. All require a spreading tripod base, a joint, a Jackson arm sitting square on the trunnions, a firm clamp to the latter, and the arm cast solid from the axis of the swinging tail-piece to the barrel. Our catalogues should give for each instrument the height and size of stage, and the length of barrel. There has already been much discussion on the uniform construc- tion of microscopes at the meetings of the American Association of Microscopists. A resolution in this direction offered by the writer SCIEN GE. 12% last summer was ruled out on the ground that the subject was ex- hausted for the present. An important contribution on tube-length read at Pittsburgh by Professor Gage has already appeared in Queen’s Bulletzn, and will be published in the forthcoming Proceed- ings of said society. Colleges pay no duty on their instruments: hence their selection is not affected by the tariff. As to the principle, 1 am an American citizen and a teacher, and, other things being equal, I prefer to buy my microscopes of my neighbor, who will send his children to my school, and who, if he grows rich making microscopes, may endow my college, rather than to send afar, to one who is not likely to be interested in my success or that of my country. I know professors of political economy do not teach this view; but most business-men act according to it, though the principle may be unwisely applied. Under it as the rule of our national polity, we have made the best and cheapest watches, telescopes, and apparatus for the investiga- tion of radiant heat; and, if the users of microscopes will only co- operate fairly with the makers thereof, we shall soon have the best and cheapest microscopes the world has yet seen. Many who con- demn protection, ask for international copyright; and one of their arguments is, that, by raising the price of foreign literature, it will make a better market for domestic productions. So it will, and tend to shut out some excellent foreign work, and is so far just as ‘absurd and senseless’ as the duty on microscopes. For details on the above matters, see HARTING, Das Mikroskop, vol. iii. p. 262; MAYALL’s ‘Cantor Lectures;’ and Hon. J. D. Cox, ‘Microscopic Work,’ Amertcan Journal of Microscopy for 1879, p. 131. W. H. SEAMAN, M.D. Howard University, Washington, D.C., Feb. 25. Indian Wrist-Guards. IN a review of Professor Morse’s ‘ Methods of Arrow-Release’ in Sczence last year (ix. p. 122), I ventured to suggest “whether it is not possible that the so-called ‘ pierced tablets,’ which are described and figured by Professor Rau (Archeologzcal Collection of the Smithsonian Instztutzon, p. 23) and other writers, and which have given rise to so much discussion among American antiquaries, may not have been guards worn to protect the wrist against the recoil of the bow-string.”” Since writing this, 1 have happened upon an article by R.S. Robertson, in The. American Antzquaréan (i. p. 100), in which he advances the same opinion. He says, ‘“‘A short time since, when exhibiting one to an old gentleman, who was a clerk for a fur-trader, while the Miamis still occupied the region around Fort Wayne, he assured me he had often seen them in use, and that they were worn on the left wrist to ward off the blow of the bow-string in hunting.” I have lately noticed statements in. early descriptions of the customs of the Indians, which seem to. me to lend some countenance to this view. Capt. John Smith, in his ‘Map of Virginia,’ p. 23 (Arber’s reprint, p. 68), telling how the Indians make their bows and arrows, says, ‘‘ His arrow-head he quickly maketh with a little bone, which he ever weareth at his bracer, of any splint of stone or glass in the form of a heart.” Strachey, in his ‘Historie of Travaile into Virginia’ (Hakluyt Society edition, p. 106), employing precisely the same language, adds, “and which bracer is commonly of some beast’s skin; either of the wolf, badger, or black fox.” In the ‘General History of Vir- ginia,’ which comprises a reprint, with additions, of ‘The Map of Virginia,’ Third Book, p. 15 (Arber’s reprint, p. 397), in an account of the capture of Smith, we are informed that the Indians had “every one his quiver of arrows, and at his back a club; on his arm a fox or an otter’s skin, or some such matter, for his vambrace.” Winslow, in ‘Good Newes from New England’ (Young's edition, p. 365), says, ‘The men wear also, when they go abroad in cold weather, an otter or fox skin on their right arm, but only their bracer on the left.” As ‘bracer,’ or ‘vambrace,’ was the common term employed by old English writers to designate armor worn upon the fore-arm, we are authorized to infer from these statements that the Indians. were accustomed to make use of the skin of some animal for a similar purpose. It would seem to be a very easy transition from a piece of leather to a thin, flat tablet of stone, pierced near the centre usually with two holes, which could readily be adjusted_ to. the wrist as a guard. 122 In ancient Egyptian tomb-paintings (WILKINSON'S Axzczent Egyptians, i. p. 351), archers are depicted wearing such wrist- guards; and in the European museums it is quite common to find small, oblong, thin plates of bone or ivory, pierced with holes, which are universally regarded there as having been employed for such a purpose. HENRY W. HAYNES, Boston, Feb. 29. Notes on the Geology of the Cascade Range. IN Scéence of Feb. 10, Mr. Herbert Lang discussed evidence bear- ing on the history of the Cascade Range in Oregon. It may be of interest in connection with Mr. Lang’s conclusions to state some facts observed by the parties of the Northern Transcontinental Survey in explorations conducted in Washington Territory from 1881 to 1884. Coal was the prime object of these surveys, and work was most thorough where it was found in greatest abundance ; but the pros- pecting parties covered the greater part of the Cascade Range north of Mount Rainier, and the facts which follow are of my own obser- vation unless otherwise stated. It was found that the formations of the Cascade Range in Wash- ington Territory are, 1. Glacial drift; 2. Tertiary eruptives; 3. Unaltered sandstones and shales containing numerous carbonaceous beds, thickness 13,000/+ (Laramie ?); 4. Local conglomerates (cretaceous ?); 5. Altered sediments; 6. Granite. The granite base of this column was observed beneath the erup- tives of Mount Rainier by Mr. S. F. Emmons in September, 1870; it crops out extensively on Upper Cedar River, a stream which enters Puget Sound at Seattle; it forms the heights of the Peshas- tan Range, north of Ellensburg; granite cliffs of the western side of the Columbia Cafion oppose basaltic walls of the eastern bank from the mouth of the Methow River to the Wenatchie, and granite forms the mass of the Cascade Range north of the Snoqualmie Pass. In remarks recently made before the Philosophical Society of Wash- ington, Dr. George M. Dawson described the continuation of this granite backbone northward for nine hundred miles, and he dwelt upon the absence of volcanic rocks north of the 4oth parallel. The altered sediments which rest upon the granite have yielded no fossils by which their age might be guessed, but they resemble rocks assigned to the paleozoic age by the Canadian survey, and may be of the same horizons. The beds consist of crystalline schists, limestone, and quartzite. They occur throughout the Cascade Range, from latitude 46° northward, and in the Olympic Mountains. Gold has been found in the crest east of Mount Rainier, in gravels de- rived from the Olympic mass, and on Ruby Creek, a tributary of the Skagit River. Magnetic iron ore occurs in the formation near Snoqualmie Pass, and hard blue specular ore occurs in association with jasper on the Skagit River. This ore and its associations very closely resemble the specular ores of Lake Superior, but they prob- ably belong to a very different period of geologic history. Lime- stone and schist traversed by quartz veins form an extensive area south and west of Mount Baker, bounded on the north by coal- bearing sandstones. The altered sediments underlie later unaltered deposits, probably unconformably ; but no contact has been sufficiently well observed to determine a definite relation. A conglomerate containing agat- ized casts of baculites (?) was observed by an intelligent prospector on Skookum-chuck Creek, south-east of New Tacoma; another conglomerate was seen by myself in the Peshastan Range (it con- sisted of large granite and quartz pebbles, resting on granite, and was several hundred feet thick) ; and at the coal-mine on the Skagit River, sandstone dipping 40° south-west rests upon iron ore bearing schists dipping 35° south. These three instances are the only ones known to me in which the apparent base of the recent sedimentary beds has been seen. They mark the beginning of a profound subsidence during which accu- mulations of sand and clay appear to have kept pace with the sink- ing surface. In the Wilkeson Coal-Field the thickness of these beds probably reaches 13,0004 feet, with 127 coal-beds, ranging from one to forty feet in thickness. This deposit is shown by its fossils to be of fresh or brackish water origin. Unfortunately no large collections were made, and the fossils do not definitely deter- ‘mine the age of the coal-measures; but Prof. J.S. Newberry and SCIENCE. [Vot. XI. No. 266 Dr. C. A. White agree in considering them the probable equivalent of the Laramie. These recent sediments occur throughout the Puget Sound basin, they rim the Olympic mass, they have been found in the high crest of the-Cascades near Cowlitz Pass, and north of Natchez Pass, and they were deposited to a thickness of about 1,000 feet in the region now drained by the Upper Yakima and Wenatchie Rivers. The great thickness and wide distribution of this formation are unusual features of a fresh-water deposit, and it is difficult to conceive the conditions which maintained fresh water over the area of sucha subsidence. But the problem is somewhat simplified when it is rec- ognized that the region was an archipelago like that so recently studied in southern Oregon by Captain Dutton and Mr. Diller. The Olympic peninsula was then an island, and the continuity of the coal-measure series may well be interrupted by similar spaces not yet traced out. This formation was checked by compression, which resulted in folds of an Appalachian type having anearly north and south trend, The closeness of flexure varies in different areas, and the chemical concentration of the coal is proportionate to the mechanical dis- turbance. The extreme of uniform alteration over an area of fifty square miles was reached in the Wilkeson coking coal; but local alteration, due to later volcanic influences, frequently. went much further. This compression closed the history of sedimentary deposits in this region. It may be assumed that it took place at the same period as the elevation of the northern portion of the Cascade Range, assigned by Dr. Dawson to post-cretaceous time; but we may not yet date the uplift more definitely. A period of erosion intervened between the uplift and the out- pouring of eruptives. Mounts Hood, St. Helens, Adams, and Rai- nier are the conspicuous peaks of the locus of maximum volcanic activity across which the Columbia has cut its canon, Mount Baker is the northern outlier of the line of volcanoes which begins with Shasta and Lassens Peak. Mr. Lang’s hypotheses are in part confirmed by the facts stated ; but like forces have produced unlike results in California and in Washington Territory. South of latitude 42° 30’ the Cascade’s volcanic mass is supported on a slightly disturbed sedimentary base: north of latitude 46° 30’ the range of closely flexed sediments is dotted with volcanic cones. The difference is one of degree, not of kind; but the difference is great. Many of the facts condensed in this note are stated, with more detailed descriptions of the coal-measures, in a report on the coals of Washington Territory, in Vol. XV., ‘Tenth Census Reports.’ BAILEY WILLIS. Washington, D.C., March 1. Answers. 21. GLOBULAR LIGHTNING. — The late Prof. John Fries Frazer has frequently mentioned to me having seen in his youth a ball of fire descend and strike a tree in a field in front of him. Of course, this phenomenon happened during a thunder-storm. The distance from the object struck was about fifty yards or less. Pans Philadelphia, Penn., March 2. 22. WASP-STINGS. — The discussion going on in your columns at the present time in regard to wasp-stings recalls a curious dis- covery of my boyhood. I was a very ticklish youngster, and my comrades sometimes used that weakness for their own amusement. One boy used to show me how little effect tickling had upon him ; but one hot summer day, as he was lying reading, I tickled him on the ribs, and he almost went into convulsions. I found that he was far more sensitive than any boy in the company, and he revealed his secret to me under condition of my never telling any one else. By holding his breath he became pachydermatous, and would let anybody tickle him as much as they pleased; but of course they always gave it up at once when they saw his stolid look. I tried the plan, and it worked admirably ; and it is my only protection, even unto this day, for my cuticle is as sensitive as ever. The de- duction is simple: a man holds his breath,— and a wasp, — and the stinger is ‘bluffed.’ Verd. sap. R. MCMILLAN. Liverpool, Eng., Feb. 21. Marcu g, 1888. | SerEN CE. Amusements of New York. YCEUM THEATRE. DANIEL FROHMAN.........---.---- Manager. Cor. 4th Avenue and 23d St. Wise WW lle le, A New Play by D. Berasco and H. C. DE MILLE. Iprecededibyfleesteletas-eiei= Editha’s Burglar. Evenings, 8:15, Saturday Matinees 2 WIA DISON-SQUARE THEATRE. MR. A. M. PALMER, Sole Manager. Evenings at 8:30. Saturday matinée at 2. THE LONDON COMEDY SUCCESS, HEART OF HEARTS. HEART OF HEARTS. By Henry Arthur Jones, author of ‘* The Silver King,’ &ec ALLACK’S. THIRD WEEK. Under the direction of Mr. HENRY E. ABBEY. MONDAY, MARCH 12, MORTON’S COMEDY, TOWN AND COUNTRY. TOWN AND COUNTRY. Evenings, at 8:15. Matinée Saturday at 2:15. ASINO. Broadway and 39th St Evenings at 8. Matinee Saturday at 2. THE BRIGHTEST, MERRIEST, AND MOST EN- JOYABLE COMIC OPERA EVER PRESENTED, AS PERFORMED NEARLY 700 TIMES. ERMINIE. RECEIVED WITH ROARS OF LAUGHTER. ROADWAY THEATRE. BROADWAY, 41ST-ST., AND 7TH-AV. MWanagzereaeeeeeee ene Mr. FRANK W. SANGER. Acknowledged by the ENTIRE PRESS THE HANDSOMEST THEATRE IN THE CITY. Practically Fire- proof. Thoroughly Comfortable, Perfectly Ventilated, Best Constructed, and SAFEST THEATRE IN THE WORLD. EVERY EVENING and SATURDAY MATINEE. FANNY DAVENPORT. IN VICTORIEN SARDOU’S MASTERPIECE, LA TOSCA. BOX OFFICE OPEN FROMo A.M. to 10 P.M. Boxes, $12, $10, $8. Orchestra stalls, $1.50. Orchestra circle, $1.50 and $x. Balcony, $1.50 and $r. Gallery, 50 and 35 cents. Admission, 50 cents. IBLO’S. HERRMANN. Reserved Seats, Orchestra Circle and Balcony, soc. The eminent prestidigitateur, wizard, and humorist. MATINEES WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY. March 12, DANIEL BANDMANN in his version of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE. ALY’S THEATRE, Broadway and 30th St. Under the management of Mr. AUGUSTIN DALY. Orchestra, $1.50. Dress Circle, $1. Second Balcony, soc. EVERY EVENING at 8:15. MATINEES begin at 2. EVERY NIGHT at 8:15, production of Shakspeare’s comedy in five acts, ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream, by AUGUSTIN DALY. MATINEES WEDNESDAYS and SATURDAYS. DEN MUSEE. 23d St., between sth and 6th Ave. Open from rr to 11. Sunday, 1 to rr. New Groups, New Paintings, New Attractions. ERDELYI NACZI. and hit HUNGARIAN ORCHESTRA. CONCERTS FROM 3tos5 AND 8 tort. Second exhibition of Paintings now open. Admission to all, 50 cents. Children 25 cents. Ajeeb, the Mystifying Chess Automaton. A TEMPORARY BINDER for Sczence is now ready, and will be mailed postpaid on receipt of price. Cloth =e Half Morocco - 50 cents. 75 cents. This binder is strong, durable and elegant, has gilt side-title, and allows the opening of the pages perfectly flat. Any number can be taken out or replaced without disturbing the others, and the papers are not muti- lated for subsequent permanent bind- ing. Filed in this binder, Sczexce is always convenient for reference. N. D. C. HODGES, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. | MAP-MAKING. All publishers or others de- siring to have maps made, either from relief plates or by lithograph, should write to us for estimates before placing their orders elsewhere. Any work entrusted to us will be carefully made under the super- vision of our geographical edit- or, Dr. Franz Boas. N. D. C. HODGES, Publisher of Sczence, 47 Lafayette Place, New York, SILKS. JAMES McGREERY & CO. Are now exhibiting their Importations of Novelties for the Spring Season, ‘in Plain and Fancy Dress Silks. BROADWAY AND ELEVENTH STREET NEW YORK. Mann’s Reterence Indexes. References to and transcripts or translations of the lit- erature of Any suBjECT furnished by B: PICKMAN MANN, Wasuincton, D. C. Correspondence fee, 50 cents. free. Explanatory circulars NEW MAGAZINE—THE SWISS Devoted to spreading a love of nature among the peopie. Edited CROSS by HaRLAN H. BaLLaRp, Presidentof the Agassiz Asso- ciation, and succeeding St, Niciwvl s as the official maga- zine of that body. $1.50 a year. Sample copy 10cents, or2a cents for trial subscription for 3 months. N.D. C. HODGES, PuBLISHER, Mention this magazine 47 Lafayette Place, New York. I y RUSSIA CEMENT co GLOUCESTER, MASS & ss Sample by mail 2c. stamps. These glues are used in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington for all its work of mounting speci- mens—by the Government Arsenals and Department Buildings, by the Pullman Palace Car Co., Mason & Hamlin Organ and Piano Co., and by thousands of first-class manufacturers and mechanics throughout the world. for all kinds of fine work. Pronounced STRONGEST ADHESIVE KNOWN. Sold in tin cans for mechanics and amateurs, and in bottles for family use. The total quantity sold between Jan., 1880, and Jan., 1885, in all parts of the world amounted to over 32 MILLION BOTTLES. Be sure and get the genwine LePage’s made only by RUSSIA CEMENT Co. “Lhe Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn., organized 1864, issues both Lie Policies and Accident Policies. Only large accident company in America, Only $5 a year to professional and business men for each $1,000 insurance, with $5 weekly indemnity. Has paid policy-holders nearly $11,000,000. All policies non-forfeitable. All claims paid, without discount, and immediately on receipt of satisfactory proof. W.H. WALMSLEY & C0. SUCCESSORS TO R. & J. BECK, 1016 Chestnut Street, Phila. Microscopes and all Accessories and Ap- paratus. Photograph- ic and Photo-Micro- graphic Apparatus and Outfits. Spectacles, Eye Glasses, Opera and Marine Glasses, etc. Illustrated Price List mailed free to any ad- in corresponding with us. KIMBALL’S SATIN STRAIGHT CUT CIGARETTES. People of refined taste who desite exceptionally fine cigar- ettes should use only our STRAIGHT CUT, put up in satin packets and boxes of IOs. 20s. 50s. and 100s. 14 FIRST PRIZE MEDALS. WM.S. KIMBALL & CO. STHE! eas EATAMERICAN, GOOD NEW To LADIES. Greatest Inducements ever of- fered. Now’s your time to get up orders for our celebrated Teas and Coffees, and secure a beautiful Gold Band or Moss ; : Rose China Tea Set, Dinner Set, Gola Band ©Moss Rose Toilet Set, Watch, Brass Lamp, or Webster's Dictionary. For full particulars address THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO., P. O. Box 289, 31 and 33 Vesey St., New York. GERMAN SIMPLIFIED SPANISH SIMPLIFIED The following will be found eminently practical for self-instruction: (1.) German Simplified—Complete in 12 numbers (with keys) $1.20. (2.) Spanish Simplified— 12 numbers (with keys) 1o cts. each ; No, 7 now ready ; anew number on the first of every month. Sold by all booksellers. Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by Prof. A. Knoflach, r4o Nassau St., New York. iv [Vor. XI. No. 266 e / [A Oar ty ae se AmMmual Report Office: Nos. 346 & 34 AmounthofiNet Assets JjanuanystlS87e ener eieeiaticsiecrr icici rireietrteisieit ee tsteistre terete se ceeceneeee- $%715819,623.48 REVENUE ACCOUNT. TEA Vlogo0 oodeosdagabeaesado obooRenoRodaS HOdcabal du) dod.) legapouidodpeddddare poosondouguacde HoDcoa}oconSD cab aaAO Ree $19,328,519.87 Less deferred premiums, January 1, 1887. 5 5000 1,041,666.15—$18,286,853.72 Interest and rents, etc.....-.......+-..-- 9 : 2 “1 - -- «+ 4,252,430.F0 is z Less Interest accrued January 1, 1887..... sovada 486,497.10— 3,765.933.40— _$22,052,787.12 $93,872,410,60 DISBURSEMENT ACCOUNT. Losses by death, and Endowments matured and discounted (including reversionary additions to same)........---.. 0+. see eeee ee $4,361,366.83 Dividends (including mortuary dividends), annuities, and purchased insurances............-.....------ Sa608 ..---- 5,178,843.96 MotalePageholicy Hold exrsvemecyercceniceetslelstleleleceiteielaiecteretelelecietetelelstatevefel=-1etelsielesiate $9,535, 210.79 Taxes and re-insurances,..........-...+0++++- nao ccnsodoa gooaca Coous hoDondoac0 : 00 50 : 264,495.60 Commissions (including advanced and commuted commissions), brokerages, age expenses, physicians’ fees, etc . 3,531,026.06 Office and law expenses, salaries, advertising, printing, CtC..... 2.0.0... cece eee e tenet eece eeee eee eee eee eet etn e etn eee teceeeeeceee _ 629,360.98— $13,960,093.48 $79,912,317.17 ASSETS. Cashion deposit, ony and angdhimitransitertercteatele/tclelelelsicieotale pil ciapelete ee reteletelelal-teleieielsielel-lelodl Meyer leretelalalelaleletalslaiststatalatetstey-\elelels{efelatel=lola\=)= =\el=tme(l=lclelelsists $3,038,499.60 United States Bonds and other bonds and stocks (market value, $52,255,814.82). -49,088,286 14 TACEIU IESE). oon agabaqonsdonbeos sopSe0nddaoden | baduoadar j CAUSA cares Ca aluliu es Ban alae Ee ose Boss CERES nE RE 6,887,092.59 Bonds and Mortages, first lien on real estate (buildings thereon insured 00 and the policies assigned to the Company RCTs 3 15,9 2.71 Temporary Loans (market value of securities held as _ collateral, $2,404,853) “ 1;8677500.00 *Loans on existing policies (the Reserve on these policies, included in Liabilities, amounts to over $2,000.000) - 388,799.44 *Quarterly and semi-annual premiums on existing policies, due subsequent to Jan. 1, 1888........... 26-6 eee eee eee es ab gao0009095 1,174,340.36 *Premiums on existing policies in course of transmission and collection. uded in Liabilities, is estimated at $1,300,000)....... BbadbovebséccoueboapEod bD0000 000000 Go0U 00 ade can DaGd BO DDNO DOAUaDNOODO SOUS GONE Ades HOnDDaDSONDoEOHeL 839,156.08 Agents’ balances............-...ee eee ee eee eee es -- 1703792:59 Accrued Interest on investments, January 1, 1888...... ....-...... ; ++» 488,477.59— $79,912,317.17 Market value of securities over cost value on Company’s bOOKS...........e-c eee c cence cee eee ete eee ee teen ee eens ee entre eeeeeesescee 3,167,528.68 * A detailed schedule of these items will accompany the usual annual report filed with the Insurance Department of the State of New York. TOTAL ASSETS, January 1, 1888, She aan Pie me i Ker he es noo Te Sears) hea atieceaie tae $83,079,845,85 Appropriated as follows: PAD DLOVEGiosseshiniCOUrsOlOLepay IM OMbaartilerersiederareleteleleiolarsrsfelelalajclevcrcloleleelarclerevetcleisicheleicieloleiclelie hiche sisetetcletsleletcleleleisiteticlareinelteicteceteiceiieasieicicietaciens $327,078.33 Reported losses awaiting proof, &c. 292,214.54 Matured endowments, due and unpaid (claims not presented) 27,582 30 Annuities due and unpaid (claims not presented)............. 13,042 96 Reserved for re-insurance on existing policies; partici i participating at 5 per cent. Carlisle net premium... ........... 2... .ee cece ee cae cee eee cece cece ce cen nce cece ecee $68,807,642.00 Additional amount of Reserve (transferred from Surplus account) required on account of new State Standard of valuation (Actuaries’ 4 per cent.), taking effect December 31, 1887.......... 00-2 e eee e eee cece cee cece eee eeeeeeees 1,592,098.00 —70,399,740.00 Reserved for contingent liabilities to Tontine Dividend Fund, January 1, 1887, over and above a4 per cent. Reserve on existing policies of that class. os O00 4,176.425.25 Addition to the Fund during 1887....... ee a -. 1,785,602.54 DEDUCT— $5,962. 027.79 Returned to Tontine policy-holders during the year on matured Tontines............ 2.2... cece ee cece eee ee cece ee 646,306.96 Balance of Tontine Fund, January 1, 1888... 5,315,720.83 Reserved for premiums paid in adyance.. ___52,886.7; Fes $76,428,265.74 Divisible Surplus (Company’s new Standard)....................0.0000e REAM er PICS EEST. AA nn sOtG ee: -$6,651,580.11 : races : : $83,079,845.85 Surplus by the present New York State Standard, i.e., 4 percent. Actuaries’ (including the Tontine Fund).............2..-. 000. ceeee eens -$11,846,793.06 From the undivided surplus, as above, the Board of Trustees has declared a Reversionary dividend to participating policies in proportion to their contri- bution to surplus, available on settlement of next annual premium. Number of policies issued during the year, 28,522. Risks assumed $106,749,295. Total number of policies in force December 31, 1887, 113,323. Amount at risk, $358,935,536. TRUSTEES: WM. H. APPLETON, JOHN CLAELIN, EDWARD MARTIN, WM. L. STRONG, WILLIAM H. BEERS, ROBERT B. COLLINS, RICHARD MUSBER, W. F. BUCKLEY, WILLIAM A. BOOTH, ALEX. STUDWELL, GEORGE H. POTTS, HENRY TUCK, Hon. BENJ. H. BRISTOW, ELIAS 8S. HIGGINS, C. 0. BALDWIN, A. H. WELCH, HENRY BOWERS, WALTER H. LEWIS, JOHN N. STEARNS, L. L. WHITE. WILLIAM H, BEERS, President . 4 . 7 ’ THEODORE M. BANTA, Cashier. — HENRY TUCK. Vice-President, | A. HUNTINGTON, M.D., Medical Director. ARCHIBALD H, WELCH. 2d Vice-President. RUFUS W. WEEKS, Actuary. SCIENCES SIXTH YEAR. NEW YORK, MARCH 16, 1888. SINGLE Copies, TEN CENTS. VoL. XI. No. 267. $3.50 PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE. Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Olass Mail-Matter. State Chemical Laboratory, Auburn, Ala. Editorial 123 | Book-Reviews. Mr. Francis Speir, jun., on the Ante-Chamber of Conscious- The American Journal of Psychology HOPE mcast A Text-Book on Roofs and Bridges 132 : | Report of the Commissioner of Education for 1885— 86 132 Bacteriology in our Medical Schools | Elizabeth Gilbert and her Work for the Blind 132 HT. W. Conn 1 23 Chemical Laboratory of the Alabama Poly- technic Institute . A bil al aga . 126 | One Year of Interstate Commerce Control Appleton Morgan 127 | Mental Science. i Morbid States of the Attention 130 | Unconscious Cerebration 131 | The Orbis Pictus of John Ames Comenius . : LS 2, Modern Theories of Chemistry 132 The Art of Projection 133 The Art of Investing 133 | Notes and News 713 | | Letters to the Editor. Effect of Pressure on Ice CREPE lA: Vermin-Eaters E, Lewis Sturtevant 134 Landing Eskimo Boats OVD ME 134: Dried Heads among the Jivaros O. T, Mason 134. The Science Company, Publishers, London agent: G. £. Stechert, 47 Lafayette Place, New Vork. 26 King Welliam St., Strand. PROF. ASA GRAY’S LATE GinAY S LESSONS REVISED; OR, THE ELEMENTS OF BOTANY Designed to take the place of a former work of the same title While in some respects more extended than the work it is made to re- place, it is also more concise and terse. It is intended to ground stu- dents in Structural Botany and the principles of vegetable growth, mainly as concerning flowering plants, as well as to be a companion and inter- | preter to the Manuals and Floras. While like a grammar of any language this work abounds in technical terms, they are so introduced and elucidated that they invariably convey knowledge and ideas. It is not expected that these technical terms will be committed to memory, but they may be looked up as they are required, and used in ,and adapted to hig 5T WORK. BOTANY, AND SCHOOLS. des than the “‘ How Plants Grow.” FOR BEGI their proper connection thel: meaning will not be readily forgotten. In the present edition of this book the Glossary has been considerably enlarged, and no small number of Latin and Greek words, which form a part or the whole of the commoner specific names, are added for the benefit of students who, from an ignorance of the language from which they are derived, may not readily catch the meaning of a botanical name or term. It is believed that the illustrations in this volume, which number nearly 600, will be found specially helpful and instructive. From Daniel C. Eaton, M.A., Prof. of Botany in Yale University. ‘“‘T have no hesitation in saying that no other elementary botanical work ever issued is to be compared with this GRay’s LESSONS REVISED.” Extra cloth, 226 pages, 589 illustrations. Price for Introduction, 94 cents. GRAY’S SCHOOL AND FIELD BOOK OF BOTANY, This book is made up of the REVISED LESSONS IN BOTANY, AND THE | FIELD, FOREST, AND GARDEN BOTANY, and forms the Botanical text- book in most common use in the high schools of the United States. It Cloth, 8vo, 621 pages. is adapted to beginners and advanced classes wherever the science is taught, and furnishes a hand-book to assist in analyzing plants tand flowers in field study, either by classes or individuals. Price for Introduction, $1.80. Write for new descriptive pamphlet of Gray's Botanical Series, containing portrait and biographical sketch of the author. IVISON, BLAKEMAN & CO., Publishers, 149 Wabash Avenue, Chicago. 753-755 Broadway, New York. il SCIENCE. [Vot. XI. No. 267 J, GRUNOW, 621 Sixth Avenue, New York. Established 1852. MAKER OF Microscope Stands, ‘Oil Immersion Object- ives and Abbe Con- densers for Bacterial and Histological work, of Objectives, Camera Lucida and other ac- cessory apparatus. for estimates Wants. N EDUCATED AND CAPABLE PERSON wanted in every town and city to canvass for sub- scriptions to Sczezce,; liberal compensation. Address, naming references, PUBLISHER OF SCIENCE, 47 Lafayette Place, New York city. A TEMPORARY BINDER ffor Science is now ready, and will be mailed ypostpaid on receipt of price. Cloth Half Morocco - - - 50 cents. 75 cents. This binder is strong, durable and All publishers or others de- siring to have either from relief plates or by lithograph, should write to us before their orders elsewhere. work entrusted to us will be carefully made under the super- vision of our geographical edit- or, Dr. Franz Boas. N. D. C. HODGES, Publisher of Sczezce, 47 Lafayette Place, elegant, has gilt side-title, and allows the opening of the pages perfectly flat. Any number can be taken out or replaced without disturbing the others, and the papers are not muti- lated for subsequent permanent bind- ing. Filed in this binder, Sczexce is always conyenient for reference. N. D. C. HODGES, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. GUSTAV E. STECHERT, 828 Broadway, New York. Importer of Scientific Books and Periodicals, Branches: Leipzig, Hospital Str. 16 ; Lon- don, 26 King William Str., Strand. MAP-MAKING. |(@pyatittes © o NSS maps made, placing 4A WS Any | |e 125.40 | ALMOST AS PALATABLE AS MILK, So disguised that the most - delicate stomach can take it. Remarkable as a FLESH PRODUCER, ' Persons gain rapidly while taking it. Na , SCOTT'S EMULSION Is acknowledged by Physicians to be the FINEST and BEST preparation of its class for the relief of CONSUMPTION, SCROFULA, GENERAL DEBILITY, WASTING DISEASES OF CHILDREN, and CHRONIC COUGHS. Aut Daveersrs. Scott & Bowne, New York. “How to Strengthen the Memory.” Rev. E. L. Kelly, of Paterson, N. J., writing of Dr Holbrook’s book, “ How to Strengthen the Memory ; or, Natural and Scientific Methods of Never Forgetting,’ says; ‘‘I haveread this treatise, this gem, and find a mine of wealth hidden in its pages. By it I was enabled last evening to learn the poem ‘ Stabat Mater,’ in Latin. It took a little time, but the results were marvelous.’’ Catalogue and prospectus free. Mailed to any address on receipt of $1, by M.L. HOLBROOK CO ,13 Laight St., New York. New York. BOTANY FOR ALL GRADES. HOOKERS’ SCIENCE PRIMER OF BOTANY. A very interesting and valuable little work designed to supply an elementary knowledge of the principal facts of plant-life. Introduction price, 35 cents. YOUMANS’ FIRST BOOK OF BOTANY. Designed to cultivate the observing powers of children. Plants themselves are the objects of study. The pupil is told very little, and from the beginning throughout is sent to the plant to get his knowledge of the plant. Introduction price, 64 cents. YOUMAN'S DESCRIPTIVE BOTANY. A practical guide to the classification of plants with a Popular Flora. In this work the pupil is introduced to the study of Botany by direct observation of vegetable forms. The book provides for the study of all those features that are used in classification and illustrates by practical exam- ples the uses to be made of these observations in Systematic Botany. Introduction price, $1.20. BENTLEY'S PHYSIOLOGICAL BOTANY. Prepared as a sequel to Descriptive Botany by Eliza A. Youmans. Designed to give an elementary account of Structural and Physiological Botany, or of the inner and minute or- ganisms and activities of plants. Introduction price, $1.20. HENSLOW’S BOTANICAL CHARTS. Modified and adapted for use in the United States by Eliza A. Youmans. Six charts mounted on rollers contain- ing nearly five hundred figures colored to the life, which represent twenty-four orders and more than forty species of plants. These charts are the only ones of the kind ever published, and form an invaluable aid to the systematic study of Botany. Price, per set with key, mounted on “‘ Excelsior Map Supporter,” $19.25. Without Supporter, $ 5.75. Specimen copies mailed, post-paid, to teachers — for examination — at the introduction prices. circulars. Send for full descriptive D. APPLETON & CO., PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK, BOSTON, CHICAGO, ATLANTA, SAN FRANCISCO. ore iNC EL FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 1888. THE MOST INTERESTING and the most valuable article in the Popular Sctence Monthly for March is one entitled ‘The Ante- ‘chamber of Consciousness,’ by Mr. Francis Speir, jun. It embodies the result of some carefully planned investigations in psychology for the purpose of weighing anew the argument for unconscious cere- bration. The mode of presentation is excellent, and shows an ac- quaintance with scientific method. The facts are presented by themselves without comment, and the discussion of them follows. The facts, and the writer’s opinion concerning the facts, are, as they should be, kept quite distinct. The method adopted for the accumulation of data was the well-known one of distributing printed questions, to be answered from personal experience. The question in which the inquiry centred was, ‘ Does there exist in man the power to exert intellectual activity during unconsciousness? ’ The answers are grouped and summarized under four heads; (a) when the effort is simple. by reproducing past experiences in obedi- ence to a mandate of the will; (%) by comparing related facts, and arriving at a settled judgment; (c) when the effort is more complex, by continuing old trains of thought begun in consciousness, and proceeding logically, step by step, to a relative settled conclusion ; (d@) when the effort is most complex, by commencing and continu- ing new trains of thought without having voluntarily undertaken or continued them, and arriving at results of original creation as inven- tions, literary and musical creations, etc. Of the first, Mr. Speir says, “Almost every individual says concerning these experiences, «They are of such frequent occurrence that when they happen I pay no special attention to them.’’”” Of the second it is said that many people, during a state of perfect unconsciousness, can accu- rately measure time as well as, and often better than, they can in consciousness. In doing this they may perform an intellectual pro- cess similar in all respects to the conscious act of calculating:a dis- tance between known points. Of the third, “ about eighty-five per cent of those answering claim to have arrived at definite results of work begun in consciousness and left unfinished, at results of a finished logical nature, at results that could come only by bridging the gap between the beginning and partial continuation in con- sciousness, and the perfected conclusion by predicting the existence and operation of unconscious intellectual effort as the necessary cause of the known result.” Of the fourth, “only thirty per cent claim to have suddenly discovered the results of creative effort; these creations appeared suddenly, most often while the individuals were engaged in matters foreign to the discovery.” All these volu- minous answers could not have been collected without patient effort ; and psychologists should be very grateful to the writer for laying so much that is new before them. We trust that Mr. Speir will find time and opportunity to push these investigations further, and to complete his chain of evidence by additional data. BACTERIOLOGY IN OUR MEDICAL SCHOOLS. IT was stated in this paper some weeks ago that inquiries were on foot the purpose of which was to obtain information concerning the attitude of our medical schools and training-schools for nurses, toward the germ-theory of disease. For this purpose a circular was sent to each medical school in the country and each training- school for nurses, requesting information on this matter. In most cases the circular was sent to the dean of such institutions, and has asked replies to the questions given below. Answers to this circu- lar have been received from quite a large number of schools, and direct personal inquiry has elicited information from others that have not responded to the circular. In these ways information has been obtained from the following institutions and physicians: — I. University of Colorado, J. H. Kimball. 2. Medical Department of Yale College, New Haven, Conn., M. C. White. 3. Chicago Medical College, N. S. Davis. 4. College of Physicians and Surgeons, Chicago, Ill., A. Reeves Jackson. 5. Rush Medical College, Chicago, Ill., J. Adams Allen. 6. Medical College of Indiana, J. L. Thompson. 7. Hospital College of Medicine, Louisville, Ky., W. H. Bolling. 8. Medical Department of Tulane University, New Orleans, La., S. E. Chaille. g. College of Physicians and Surgeons, Baltimore, Md. 10. Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass. 11. University of Michigan, H. Sewell. 12. Minnesota College of Physicians and Surgeons, J. T. Moore. 13. Minnesota Hospital College, F. A. Dunsmoor. 14. C. H. Hunter. Minneapolis, Minn. 15. Kansas City Medical College, Missouri, E. W. Schauffler. 16. North-western Medical College of St. Joseph, Mo., F. A. Simmons. 17. Medical Department of Buffalo University, Buffalo, N.Y., T. F. Rochester. 18. New York Medical College for Women, C. S. Lozier. 19. Medical College of Ohio, J. T. Whittaker. 20. Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Penn., Morris Long- streth. 21. University of Pennsylvania, William Osler. 22. Pulte Medical College, Cincinnati, O., J. D. Buck. 23. Hahnemann Medical College, Philadelphia, A. R. Thomas. 24. Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York. 25. College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. 26. Medical Department of City of New York. 27. American Medical College, St. Louis, Mo., E. Vounlin: 28. Long Island College Hospital, C. Jewett. The schools in this list will hereafter be referred to by the num- bers affixed against them. This list includes about one-fourth of the medical schools of the country; but inasmuch as it includes all of the largest schools, the proportion of students thus represented is much larger. Nearly one-half of the medical students of the country are in attendance upon the schools represented in the above list. The answers received to some of the questions show in many cases so much similarity, that it is not necessary to give them all here in detail. The following summary will indicate the questions, and the substance of the replies :— Questzon i. Is the theory that most, if not all, infectious diseases are caused by the growth of microscopic organisms, accepted by the members of your faculty and the physicians in your vicinity ? To this question the responses have been in the affirmative in al- most every instance. Nos. 3 and 22 change the question so that it reads, “caused or accompanied by,” and then answer in the affirmative. This, of course, changes completely the significance of the answer ; for, if the causal connection between the microbe and the disease is denied, there is nothing left of the germ-theory. No. 5 says, “ No.” No. 7 says, ‘Some absolutely, some cum grano salzs.” No. 12. “ Opinions still divided, a majority of the more modern thinkers falling in with that view.” No. 27. “ Not wholly.” No. 28. “ No, we are not wedded to this theory. but it may not.” It may be true, 124 Question 2. Do you regard the theory as of as much importance as is claimed for it by the various doctors and scientists who adyo- cate it ? With the exceptions noted below, all of the replies recognize that the subject is one of great importance, this conclusion being in general based on the fact that the germ-theory emphasizes and makes possible a scientific study of preventive medicine. The exceptions are as follows : — No. 3. “I do not. The adoption of the mere theory as a general proposition does not add any thing to our resources for either curing or preventing disease. Every new fact that becomes clearly and definitely established concerning the existence of a microbe, a ptomaine, or any other material condition accompanying the devel- opment and progress of any disease, is of importance, because each new fact is likely to suggest such investigations as will bring to light other facts until results of importance are obtained. The popular adoption of a general theory of disease has in all ages led to an effort to make all facts conform to the theory, and thereby led to many practical errors.” No. 5. ‘ Briefly, no.” No. 7. ‘No, I do not believe that the bacillus has been proved to be the occasion of disease. Mayit not.be a product ? Am open to conviction.” No. 22 says, “Further investigations very desirable. The facts are not allin yet.” Question 3. Do you think the practical value of the subject is destined to be sufficient to demand a wider and more thorough treatment in our medical schools and training-schools for nurses ? To this question a simple or an emphatic affirmative answer was given in all cases where a reply was received, except in the follow- ing instances : — No. 3. “I think the subject receives a full share of attention in all the more important medical colleges, hospitals, and training- schools for nurses in the country. Such is certainly the case in the schools in this city, and in the medical societies also.” No. 5. “No.” No. 6. ‘I do not, by any means.” No. 7. “ The whole subject needs to be further investigated and better understood.” No. 22. ‘As fast as solid ground is reached. naturally jumps at conclusions.” No. 27. “ There is nothing as yet very practical about the sub- ject : it is mainly theoretical.” The human mind Question 4. Is it practical to introduce it into a medical course as a branch of pathology ? No direct reply to this question has been received from Nos. 2, 10, 12, 19, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26. In all of these institutions, however, very special attention is paid to the study of bacteriology, as will be seen in the answers to the next question. No. 1 says, ‘Yes, but the ideas advanced should be demon- strable.” No. 3. ‘Certainly not; and for the reason that microscopic or- ganisms, so far as they act as causes of disease, belong to the de- partment of etiology instead of pathology, and, if any of them are simply developed as products of disease, they belong to the depart- ment of morbid anatomy.” No. 5. ‘‘ No.” No. 6. ‘No. It could be disposed of in a few sentences ; but to make the fuss over it that some lunatics do is an abomination in the eyes of the Lord and man.” No. 7. “‘ Not at present.” No. 8. “ This is a question chiefly of finance and of public appre- ciation of preventive medicine.” No. 11. “I think it not only practical, but necessary to an under- standing of pathology.” No. 16. “Yes, and it ought to be done, or intimately associated with it, as we have already done in our school.” No. 27. ‘‘ Not as a branch of pathology settled, but it is well to treat of the subject so far as science has unfolded.” All others answer with a simple affirmative. Question 5. To what extent does the subject receive attention SEGIPNCE: [ Vor. XI No. 26% in the medical course of the school with which you are con- nected ? The answers to this question are of so much interest, that they are given here in detail. No. 1. “Not to any great extent, no pathological laboratory work.” No. 2. “A fully equipped laboratory for bacteriological investiga- tion. A special lecturer is employed to give instruction. In the pathological laboratory attention is given to demonstrations of the presence of bacteria in disease. The subject of ptomaines is taught in the chemical department.” No, 3. “ The subject of micro-organisms receives a full share of attention in the practical laboratories of chemistry, histology, pathology, and a well-equipped bacteriological laboratory, as well as in the teaching of every practical department, both didactic and clinical.” No. 4. “All the teachers whose branches bear upon it teach it more or less, though not systematically. We have a professorship which includes general pathology, hygiene, and bacteriology.” No. 5. “ More than deserved.” No. 6. “In speaking of the causation of disease, it receives due attention.” No. 7. “ Two professors of pathology. No. 8. “ All of the seven chairs enforce the germ-theory of com- municable disease.” No. 9. “Special lecturer employed to give instruction on this subject.” No, to. ‘“‘ Bacteriological laboratory, and a special instructor in this branch.” No. 11. “A special chair of pathology and bacteriology has re- cently been established, and a well-known scientific worker elected to fill it.” No. 12. ‘The pathology which I give in connection with theory and practice, when dealing with infectious diseases, includes bac- teriology; and I am in the habit of urging the students to investi- gate the field for themselves, as the branch is not thoroughly de- veloped.” i No. 13. ‘““One lecture each in surgery, medicine, obstetrics, and poisons, with four in chair of pathology, and practical microscopical work.” No. 14. “Interwoven in all the teaching. Lectures on micro- organisms, their life-histories, nature of proof that they cause dis- eases, etc., are given. Different specimens of bacteria are demon- strated.” No. 15. ‘(Is lectured on and demonstrated by one lecturer on histology, who has one hour a week.” No. 16. “‘ The subject is largely taught by the professors in sur- gery, theory and practice, materia medica, chemistry, gynecology, pathology, and hygiene.” No. 17. “A culture laboratory, and the professor devotes consid- erable time to bacteriology.” No. 18. ‘ Professor of hygiene teaches in his lectures something of the theory of germ-cells and microbes in disease, and the im- portance of care and cleanliness; also the danger of eating un- cooked or rarely cooked animal food. The professor of anatomy and histology also has given some very instructive discussions in his lectures on the subject.” No. 19. “ A fully equipped bacteriological laboratory. The lab- oratory was furnished directly from Koch’s laboratory in Berlin.” No. 20. “In the early lectures of the yearly course on pathology a full exhibition of the pathogenic forms is made by means of the lantern; also lectures on the relation of the micro-organisms to each disease. In the laboratory the class examine with the micro- scope the organisms in stained preparations of cultures and sections of tissue, etc. The method of culture-preparation, etc.,are shown.” No. 21. “In the second and third years a good deal of time is spent by the students in the pathological laboratory. Bacteriology forms part of the regular course of instruction. In the department of clinical medicines the bacteriological questions in relation to diagnosis and etiology are fully discussed, and the clinical labora- tory is provided with full means of research in this line.”’ No. 22. “Incidentally only.” No. 23. “ Only in an incidental way in connection with infectious. ” Marcu 16, 1888. | disease. I have in contemplation introducing a department for study and original experiment in bacteriology in our school.” No. 24. ‘A competent instructor in bacteriology, trained in Ger- many.” No. 25. “A well-equipped bacteriological Lage with a special instructor.” No; 26. “ A special instructor, a pupil of Koch, aia bacteriologi- eal instruction.’ No. 27. “ The facts and investigations are Beaty set forth, leav- ing the subject open to further investigation. We believe that blood-poisoning may not be due to germs. Much depends on ptomaines. Decomposition does not depend on germs. Suppura- tion has a cause within the body independent of germs. Germs may be the result of decomposition or animal chemical changes. At all events, we are not satisfied on these points.” No. 28. “I can speak of obstetrics only. The student is taught a rigid aseptic practice, and is daily drilled in the methods of steri- lizing hand and instruments, etc.” Question 6. Do you think the general principles of the nature of infectious diseases, and the methods and meaning of infection, should be taught the general public through the public school ? The responses to this question have been quite varied, and are of ‘course in all cases personal opinions rather than official replies. These replies are interesting as indicating various opinions on pub- lic-school teaching, and a number of them are given below; but ‘since in some cases the request was made that the reply should not be quoted, the replies are given without reference to the source from which they are obtained. Ten replied with a simple affirmative : others replied as follows :— “T think that this subject, in connection with general sanitary science, might and should be introduced into the studies of the common school.” “ Not yet, except in the way of and in regard to necessary disin- fection, cleanliness, and general hygiene.” “ Am free to say that the attempt to teach bacteriology generally would be a most misdirected effort.” “Tt would unquestionably be avantageous could suitable teachers be obtained; but I shudder to think of the statements which would ‘pass current if the subject were made obligatory in even the high schools.” “Not at present, but after the subject is more fully understood.” “No, they would make a botch of it, and teach more falsehood than truth. It needs more acquaintance with the subject than can be expected of non-medical or non-expert teachers.” “Yes. If physiology and healthy function are taught, of much more importance would it be to sow the seed of understanding how to keep those functions healthy in all ways. An elementary work on preventive medicine, including bacteriology, should be taught ithe young. It should be so prepared that the mind could grasp it without being prepared by a medical education.” “To some extent it should ; but so very much is crowded into the children’s heads, that they become dazed, and are mere parrots when they get through.” “No, certainly not: first, because not one per cent of the scholars in the public schools have reached the stage of maturity and men- tal discipline necessary to enable them to comprehend or profit by the teaching of such subjects; second, because the public schools are already over-crowded with so many branches of higher and more -abstruse character, that not twenty-five per cent of the scholars are allowed time enough to gain an adequate knowledge of the most rudimentary and practical branches of knowledge. Consequently it is much easier to find boys and girls who can repeat Latin, French, or German, finger a piano, recite verbatim answers from a manual of physiology, etc., than to find those who can write a letter con- taining one or two hundred words without violating some of the most important rules of orthography, syntax, and penmanship.” “T do not think any one connected with this school would ad- vise the introduction of bacteriology in our public schools.” “First teach the profession, and through them the public. No objection, of course, to extending knowledge in every possible way, but don’t think it yet time to expect much through public schools. We must first show more facts.” SCIENCE: 125 “No harm, little good.” From the circulars sent to the training-schools for nurses, no responses have been received. This is the more to be regretted, since, if preventive medicine is of value to any one, it is to nurses. A few words in final summary and review may not be amiss. The question naturally arises, whether the responses from the schools above given can fairly be taken as an average, and whether we can judge of the whole body of medical schools by the replies received from those in the above list. I think it cannot be as- sumed that this is possible. The above list includes nearly all of the larger schools, and those in which most advanced methods would be expected. It seems quite natural, also, that those institutions which have given any considerable attention to this subject would be more likely to respond to the circular sent by Sczezce than those which had not yet regarded the subject as of sufficient importance for careful study. It is almost certain, therefore, that, if responses should be received from the remainder of the medical schools, there would be found a much larger proportion in which the subject is considered only incidentally or not at all, a much larger proportion in which the germ-disease theory is regarded as of little or no im- portance. The fact that no responses have been received from the training- schools for nurses can hardly be interpreted as having other signifi- cance than that the subject of bacteriology has not received enough attention in these schools to warrant any opinion on the matter. From the replies above summarized, even though they are less general than could be wished, I think we can fairly draw the fol- lowing conclusions : . The germ- theory has in the past few years been rapidly ac- ante acceptance, is almost everywhere regarded as a subject worthy of most careful consideration, and is nowhere looked upon as an absurd speculation, as was the case a few years ago. The causal connection between specific microbes and definite diseases is not yet, however, everywhere acknowledged by physicians. 2. Quite a number of special bacteriological laboratories have been established in connection with our larger medical schools. They are under the charge of competent directors, and are places where original research is being carried on, and where students have an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the subject in a prac- tical manner. American medical schools are thus doing their share in this research in this matter, and in the endeavor to advance our knowledge of bacteria and their relations to disease. 3. A large number of our schools, probably a large majority of them, do pay considerable attention to bringing to the notice of their students this subject in its theoretical and practical bearings. In some cases it is only done incidentally, in others by a few odd lectures, and in others by regular courses of lectures and laboratory instruction. As much is being done in this line as can be expected, when we remember that not a few of the medical courses are, of necessity, little more than periods of cramming to give the stu- dents just enough knowledge to enable them to make ordinary practitioners. The course is frequently so short as to make it hardly a possibility to treat scientifically any subject not directly bearing upon the treatment of disease. It will be noticed that the amount of attention given to the subject is not regulated by the amount of importance placed upon it by those who have answered the circulars. In some cases where the theory is rejected it is still taught in the school; and in others, where it is fully accepted and regarded as of great importance, the amount of teaching is yet very slight. This indicates that it is usually difficulties of finance or otherwise which in many cases have delayed the adequate consid- eration of the matter. 4. It would be the opinion of probably a majority of physicians and teachers, both of those who believe in the importance of the subject and of those who do not regard it as of much import, that the time has not yet come when bacteriology can be taught to ad- vantage in the public schools: at least, this cannot be done until some thoroughly competent person shall have carefully summarized the facts in the form of a short, clear account, which could be used asatext-book. It must be borne in mind, however, that many physicians are, for reasons similar to those given above, opposed to the teaching of physiology in the public schools, This is, however, 126 generally recognized as advantageous, and in some States required by law. It certainly seems, that, if physiology is to be taught, there would be just as few evils, and much more of value, accruing from the study of the principles of infection and subjects connected therewith, than results from the study of many subjects now taught under the head of physiology. The value of the study of bacteriol- ogy in the colleges and universities is more evident, and has been well shown in the letter of Mr. Theobald Smith, published in a re- cent number of this paper. In conclusion, then, it may be said that our medical schools and profession generally have been and are advancing along this line of bacteriology as fast as canbe expected. Allof the larger schools have taken up the subject in a thorough manner, and many of the smaller ones are doing the same. The indications are, that a few years will see bacteriology established as a subject to be taught, either as a branch of pathology or otherwise, in all of the medical schools whose financial condition will warrant it. H.W. CONN. CHEMICAL LABORATORY OF THE ALABAMA POLY-— TECHNIC INSTITUTE. WE present in this number of Sczenzce a cut of the new chemical laboratory of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, located at Auburn. The substantial growth of this institution has been such that the trustees, at their annual meeting in June of last year, authorized the construction of a new laboratory in con- General Laborato ea FH GH a 32 B Balances, R Lattieses FIRST FLOOR. A, Spectroscope and polariscope room ; B, Assistant’s private working-room ; C, Com- bustion-furnace room. nection with the Agricultural Experiment Station and the State Department of Agriculture, of which the professor of chemistry is the official chemist, and for original research. At a subsequent meeting in July, it was determined to erect a larger building than at first contemplated, and transfer to it the chemical department of the college. SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. No. 267 The building is a handsome two-story structure, 40 by 60 feet, with a stately tower, and a rear projection 35 by 60 feet of one story, and basement. The exterior is of the best quality of pressed brick, laid in red mortar, with cut stone trimmings and terra-cotta ornamentation. : The main floer contains a central hall ten feet wide, with side hall for stairway of the same width, but extending only halfway Gas room. 25° SECOND FLOOR. across the building. On entering through the large archway under the tower, the first room to the left is the office of the professor of chemistry, to the rear of which is the library and balance-room- On the right, extending the whole length of the floor, is the State laboratory and laboratory for research. Two small rooms are cut off from this, one to be used as a balance-room, and the other for the spectroscope and polariscope. Leading from the rear of the main hall is the door which enters the large laboratory for general work. Two rooms are cut off from this,—one for combustion furnaces ; and the other, a private working-room for the assistant. In the basement are ample accommodations for assaying and storage. The main laboratory will accommodate sixty students, and, when the fitting-up is completed, will contain the latest im- proved working-tables, with water, gas, and every necessary appli- ance for chemical work. Niches in the walls opposite each work- ing-table, with hoods where necessary, connect with flues, and furnish the best possible means of escape for deleterious vapors, while ventilators in the ceiling furnish additional means for getting rid of noxious gases. The pitch is sixteen feet in the clear, with panelled ceiling of oiled Southern pine. The rooms are wainscoted throughout, and finished in natural wood. The second story contains a large lecture-room and room for gas-analysis. Around this lecture-room, suitably arranged, will be cases for con- taining crude and manufactured products, illustrating the subjects. of agricultural and industrial chemistry, which are prominent sub- jects taught in this institution. Since the war, the South has. awakened to an appreciation of her vast industrial resources, and every effort is made to educate her young men in a way that will prepare them to utilize her vast deposits of coal and iron and mar- ble, and other valuable minerals, as well as to maintain, and if pos- sible to increase, the productive capacity of her soil. Bruce. aa MorGAN ARCHITECTS ATLANTA GEORGIA \\ AN Ny TTT | i aD rile eee att = ———— a= =— See Wii OTATE CHE : SCIENCE, March 16, 1888. No. 267. therew under ° ogy in well sk cent ni In cc profess of bact have te smaller years v either < schools CHEM WE) laborati ~ located has bee last yea A, Spectro nection © Departm the offici meeting at first c the colle; Marcu 16, 1888. ] ONE YEAR OF INTERSTATE COMMERCE CONTROL. -. WHO IS THE GAINER? Jus one year ago the government laid the iron hand of a Bis- marck upon the railways of this nation, their procedure, tariffs, and particulars, under guise and pretext of a provision of the Constitu- tion, framed at a time when railways were unconceived of in the brain of man, and when the only possible object of that provision must have been to prevent internecine commercial hostilities or dis- criminations among the States. Who has been benefited? The best evidence attainable ought to be the statement of the commis- sion appointed to administer the statute taking control of the rail- ways. In this first annual report the commission says (the Italics are ours), ‘‘ The Act to regulate commerce has now been in opera- tion nearly eight months. . . . It has operated directly to increase railroad earnings, especially in the cutting-off of free passes on interstate passenger traffic. . . . Freight traffic has been exception- ally large in volume, . . . 20 destructzve rate wars have occurred, but increased stability in rates has tended in the direction of stabil- ity in general business.” In other words, then, it is the railway companies which have been benefited. But this was not the object of the statute. The railways had not complained of ill treatment. They had, indeed, recognized the im- mense complications of competing systems, the damage suffered by the people from the rate wars and unjust recoupments for the ex- penses thereof, and had themselves provided a remedy by the es- tablishment of so-called ‘ pools ;’ which, however, the Act of Inter- state Commerce promptly and peremptorily abolished. It is something of a commentary on the words we have put in Italics above, that whereas, at the date at which the statute took effect, the situation was tranquil and satisfactory (the ‘ pools’ having low- ered rates to a minimum never reached before), the passage of the Act sent tariffs upward at a bound; and before the report above quoted had left the binder’s hands, a rate war began in the West whose bitterness has, so far, surpassed in violence any ever known. At this writing the companies engaged have lost, and are daily losing, millions, until several of the roads involved have ceased to solicit freights, because to do no business is cheaper than to move their trains for unprofitable transportation. And it will not fail to add comment to commentary, that while this very Interstate Commis- sion has been sitting calmly at Washington, dismissing trivial com- plaints against great trunk-railway systems, the ironclad statute which creates it forbids these very warring railways from warding off bankruptcy by coming together, pooling their issues, and termi- nating the battle which is sapping their resources. Next July the semi-annual dividends will be found adjusted to this rate war, and so the people of the United States will pay all the bills; and the railways, relieved of their burdens, can go on again. But such re- lief will clearly only be temporary as to them, with the prospect of more wars and more bills for the people to pay. Meanwhile the statute of interstate commerce continues to centralize without ad- justing, or attempting to adjust, the larger problems, while carefully hearing and writing opinions as to the least of minor and local par- ticulars of which individuals believe themselves warranted to com- plain; and this, although the statute itself expressly empowers the commission to take jurisdiction of its own motion, and in the ab- sence of any actual complaint whatever (on grounds of public pol- icy, no doubt; but, upon whatever policy, an opportunity just now very carefully overlooked by this honorable commission). By the time this paper appears in print, the warring railroad compa- nies will probably have come together in ‘ conference,’ ‘ committee,’ or ‘synod,’ and terminated the ruinous battle I have above alluded to. Only (in deference to the statutes of united Germany, and the Bismarck policy whose spirit has materialized among us in the shape of an interstate commerce law), whatever they call it, they will be mighty careful not to call it a ‘ pool.’ But why should the interstate commerce statute be operated to favor the railroads? Such were not the reforms sought. The Inter- state Commerce Act was the concentration of popular forces, which had for years fought railway incorporations in our legislatures and “in our courts: the crystallized expression of fifty years of popular discontent with railway management throughout this Republic- The people looked to the first utterance of a commission created to administer it, for arraignment of the wrecked railways for their SCIENCE. 2y7 disregard of popular rights, their high-handed indifference to law, and their supercilious contempt for the non-railway element in the community, that should be scathing in its terms, and triumphant inits justification of the government’s constitutional right to assume control of a private interest, and to take the first step toward that centralization which Washington deprecated in prospect, which Jackson scotched in its birth, and from the possibility of which a bloody and costly civil war was supposed to have finally relieved. Nor was it mere aimless legislation. The experiment of biennial or even triennial legislatures in some of the States, as tending to de- crease the volume of legislation, has always been found to work well, The volumes of session laws of our States are, as to their bulk, apt to become mostly lumber in a surprisingly short time, the number of statutes whose usefulness will survive the first few years of their passage being found a surprisingly small one. And even of our National Legislature it can be fairly said that the more time it wastes, the greater the nation’s gain. But the interstate commerce law was no product of mere zeal, or temptation to legislate on gen- eral principles. It was the offshoot of sentimental prejudice and jealousy, no doubt ; but its fathers and advocates in Congress can- not be suspected of having been actuated by either motive. The vastness of the nation’s growth for half a century had rapidly made railroads into systems. The immensity of the plants, the accumu- lation of costly rolling stock, the huge volume of business, could not fail to impress the people with a sense of power not proceeding, like the power of the government, from the consent of the governed — from themselves. The enormous operations carried on daily in the people’s eyes suggested enormous profits, and engendered popular discontent. These enormous operations necessitated new channels and feeders; that is to say, new railways. To save time, the in- genuity of the nineteenth century had devised construction com- panies, which, by subscribing for the capital of these new roads, should obviate the slow and tortuous collection of money by private solicitation ; and these, centralizing profits as well as subscriptions, massed wealth in localities, and attracted the popular envy. The boundlessness of all these brought great bankruptcies for courts to. deal with; and the result of each was the inevitable wrecking of great corporations, and the private accumulation of wealth in the hands of the winners in these legal fights. No sooner was this the situation than a new problem intruded itself upon the already com- plicated maelstrom. The movement known in Europe indifferently as internationalism, socialism, or nihilism (where it grew originally from the discontent of the constantly enlightening and self-educat- ing masses at the support in opulant idleness of privileged classes, useless courts, and—to the people— always absolute monarchies) was utilized to express among us the popular envy, discontent, and prejudice against corporations it felt in Europe only against kings ; and the result was felt in strikes, trade-combinations, and central labor unions, where one trade supported another, and each all, in abandoning work by the thousands and ten thousands at one and the same time. Underlying all this was, of course, the capital fact that the railway industry itself was not at fault; was not respon- sible for the shrewdness of the Wall Street operator: for intentional defaults in dividends and interest procured for wrecking purposes: for the huge competition and the closeness of margins which put them at the mercy of a single disastrous season. The president of a great railway recently asserted, in answer to a demand from the company’s employees for higher wages, that in twelve years his company had not only not netted a dollar, but had actually mined and distributed 51,000,000 tons of coal at a cost of $51,000,000, and paid $53,000,000 for the privilege! The margin of profit had dis- appeared entirely in the giant competition of American railway companies, which yet had given, and was daily giving, support to almost a tenth part of the people of the United States. But great economic facts like these, like great investments, lose strength by their very immensity. The laborer working ten hours a day, six days in the week, with a family of ten children clamoring for food, cannot be approached with figures showing, that, out of a hundred millions of income, his employer had not been able to re- serve one ten-thousandth percent; that the private fortune amassed by one man in railway wrecking was the crystallization of ruinous losses to thousands of smaller capitalists not of the working-men ; that the plant of the great corporations had been paid for by the 128 SCIENCE. hard-earned savings and small economies of thousands more ; and, most of all, that, of the total of all these losses and savings, almost a hundred per cent had gone to pay for labor, and for material the cost of which itself was largely the labor of handling it. Such statements as these, few of his betters have the brains to grapple with. The day-laborer may have sundry vague impressions that he should be paid in proportion to the number of his children rather than according to the value of his services; that the idea of anybody handling a million of money is a personal affront; and that altogether he is a slave, and that any change and convulsion, and shifting of bases, could not make him more wretched, and brought an even chance of betterment. He may not even be equal to these ideas, but simply absorb the single idea that the master of his local union has money to occasionally pay him a per deem almost as great for not working as he receives from his employer for working. But he knows that he is the slave of somebody. The nearest railway company is to him the most prominent representa- tion of massed wealth, and he accordingly selects it for the slave- driver against whom he is to rebel. Everybody saw the wrong, but the remedy was not so apparent. Everybody sees logically that the railway as an institution is innocent of all this chaos. But logic is one thing, and practical solution, quelling of clamor, ameliora- tion of disasters, are quite another. So it was that when the com- plicated problem reached the floor of Congress, it was no longer a sentiment, a prejudice, or a jealousy : it was a mighty and imperious ‘fact, demanding and insisting upon immediate attention. Congress passed the Act to regulate interstate commerce, the President ap- proved it, and it was the law of the land. It has been in operation ayear. So far as the people of these United States are concerned, has it changed the situation (existing at its approval, and admitted- ly clamoring for remedy) in the slightest degree? Have strikes ceased? Are rates lower? Have private fortunes disappeared or ceased to be accumulated? WHave the railways been curtailed in their despotic sway over the lives, fortunes, and liberties of our people? Had any recipient of a pass over one of our railways, or of a drawback, rebate, or special privilege, complained to Congress that he had beenso favored? (That concessions to the few were injuries to the many, and the ‘pass’ system an unmitigated wrong and nuisance, — these were the complaints of the railway com- panies, not of the people; and Congress had heard them with ears as deaf as adders’ ears for the last quarter of a century.) To these questions some of us are still looking for an answer, others the commission itself has answered for us. The Interstate Commerce Commission (to its credit everlastingly, be it said) did not wait for the filing of its first annual report to come boldly forward and tell the people of the United States that they were in error; that the railways were not their enemies; that, although bound to assume that it had been created for some wise purpose, and therefore to hunt around to find that purpose, the commission did not propose to share in the communistic cry of ‘Down with the railways!’ or even to adinit that railways were a menace to the liberties of the people. It seized upon its first opportunity to assume that the statute of interstate commerce was of no practical value to any- body, but intended to be understood in a purely Pickwickian sense. That opportunity was the presentation of a petition, on the part of one of the corporations to be brought under the paternal power of the commission, — the Louisville and Nashville Railroad Com- pany, — for relief from the operation of so much of the fourth sec- tion of the Act as prohibited railway companies from charging more for the ‘short haul’ than the ‘long haul,’—a_ prohibition which was and is the gist of the Interstate Commerce Act, and which opens up the entire question of the right of a railway company to judge for itself as to its right to live, operate its roadway, to pay its fixed charges, or generally to conduct the business for which the people had incorporated it. For to say that a grocer may sell sugar, but that if another grocer across the way also sell sugar the first grocer may not compete with the second grocer, is clearly to so embargo the first grocer as to close him out. To be sure, the law added a clause limiting the prohibition to “ substantially similar ‘circumstances and conditions ;”’ but the limitation scarcely helped matters, since it merely substituted a question of fact for a question of law, and opened an interminable and costly field for the taking of testimony and the examination of witnesses which could easily [Vor. XI. No. 267 paralyze any interest forced to enter it. Besides, to recur to the simile of the grocer, it might be said to permit the retail trade in sugar only on condition that no wholesaling was attempted. He might sell a pound of sugar at any price he could get, but must be careful, if he sold a thousand hogsheads, not to diminish his rate per pound, either by quoting his commodity at less, or by rebating or offsetting for the comparative magnitude of the transaction. Such, then, being the opportunity, the cause of the client, the opin- ion of the commission in this first case of importance was looked for as an emphatic justification of the law the people had enacted. But on being promulgated, the opinion, so far as any crimination of the railway companies or any indication of the constitutionality or policy of the law was concerned, turned out to be as unsatisfac- tory to the non-railway public as Balaam’s cursing of Israel was to Balak. ‘“ What hast thou done unto me?” cried the disappointed king. “I took thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast blessed them altogether.” The first pronouncement of the Inter- state Commerce Commission begins with an apology for not inter- fering with the railway companies, which, to say the least, was unique in juridicial literature. It declared (p. 5’), that, “if the commission were to perform the inquisitorial duties imposed upon it, it would be compelled to forego the performance of judicial and other functions which by the statute were apparently assumed to be of high importance, and even then its authority to grant relief would be performed under such circumstances of embarrassment and delay that it must in a large measure fail to accomplish the beneficial purposes which it must suppose the statute had in view.” The commission deprecated any performance under its inquisitorial function, since that function “‘in a single case might require for its proper determination the taking of evidence all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic ; and this not merely the evidence of witnesses for the petitioning carrier, but of such other parties as might conceive that their interests or the interest of the public would be subserved either by granting the relief applied for, or denying it’’ (p. 5). Certainly, nobody can blame the commission for preferring to sit cosily in Washington and exercise judicial functions than to take testimony not only of the parties before the commission, but of any party who might consider himself aggrieved by any act of a rail- way company or by any proximate or remote effect of such act or its theory, from Maine to California. And, even should the com- mission be able to decide the matter before it without the bother of hearing testimony, the commission admits that ‘an adjudication upon a petition for relief would in many cases be far from conclud- ing the labors of the commission in respect to the equities involved : for questions of rates assume new forms, and may require to be met differently from day to day: and in those sections of the country in which the reasons or supposed reasons for exceptional rates are most prevalent, the commission would, in effect, be re- quired to act as rate-makers for all the roads, and compelled to adjust the tariffs so as to meet the exigencies of business while at the same time endeavoring to protect relative rights and equities of rival carriers and rival localities.” ‘This [and here is a touch of nature which shows, at any rate, that an interstate commissioner’s life threatened at the very outset to be no bed of roses] in any con- siderable state would be an enormous task. Ina country so large as ours, and with so vast a mileage, it would be superhuman. A construction of the statute which should require its performance would render the due administration of the law altogether imprac- ticable’”” (p. 5) says the commission finally. And yet, if the Inter- state Commerce Act means any thing, it means just what the commissioners, in their first decision, declared to be impracticable, — superhuman and impracticable! Here are seven commissioners, at a salary of seven thousand five hundred dollars per annum, launched with an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars from the people’s treasury, and on that equipment expected to supervise the hourly business of a continent at present in the hands of perhaps a couple of thousand auditors, with a combined staff of a hundred thousand clerks and agents — with salaries ranging from twenty thousand dollars downwards, and overworked at that! But to proceed with examination of the opinion. Having frankly admitted that to endeavor to discharge the functions it was organ- 1 The references are to the official copy of the opinion printed at the Government Printing-Office, Washington, 1887. Marcu 16, 1888. | ized to administer would be superhuman and an impossible task, the commission sets to work, as in duty bound, to find something to do. It is legally bound to assume that it was created for a pos- sible purpose, to do something not superhuman. And so the com- mission, groping, as it frankly admits, in the dark, strikes at last upon the cause, “under substantially similar circumstances and conditions,” and finds at last a foothold. Surely, it says, “if the carrier . . . shall depart from the general rule, . . . if the circum- stances and conditions of the two hauls are dissimilar, the statute is not violated.” Clearly, if Congress shall take the grocery trade under its jurisdiction, and declare that the poor man must not be obliged to pay more per pound for his two pounds of ‘sugar than the dealer pays per pound for his two thousand hogsheads, it would put an end to the wholesale grocery business on the instant. But if Congress says that this rule shall only apply to the sugar made “under substantially similar circumstances and conditions,” then the sugar trade may go on in peace, as before, relying on the immutable truth that no like transactions are or can be under the same circumstances and conditions, and foregoing to attempt the “superhuman task’ of taking evidence all over the continent, — from the planters, the cultivators, the harvesters of the sugar-crop, the teamsters who carried it to the railroad, the shipper, the book- ing clerk, the carrying company, and so forth and so on, down through the jobber, the wholesaler, to the consumer or the mes- senger sent to pay the twenty or twenty-five cents for the brown paper parcel, — in perfect faith that in no two cases can the adjec- tive clause ‘substantially similar’ be predicated to any one trans- action when collated with any other transaction on record. Cer- tainly the commission is right. Indeed, the wonderful part of the Opinion is in the exact legal consistency and candor with which it admits that the law is one, whzch, ¢f logzcal, 2s ¢, By Ep- nar, Marcu 23, 1888. ] so, however, as there are numerous additions, and, what is most notable, the plan of the work in one particular differs radically from that of the larger and more complete volume. The original series from which this is derived is intended to serve as a laboratory guide, and must be used in connection with some good text-book. The present volume is so written as to be available as both a text and a laboratory book, but it will probably be found more useful as a working handbook, and as an adjunct to a well-prepared text. The explanations of principles are invariably good, but not always sufficient, the necessities of the case requiring a degree of conden- sation sometimes incompatible with great simplicity. In common with the other members of the family to which it belongs, the book has great merit. In the beginning there is an introductory chapter on fundamental measurements and measuring instruments; there is next an excellent chapter on electrostatics, but which will appear to be somewhat long to some American teachers whose ambition seems to be to reach the dynamo-machine in the shortest possible time; then follows a chapter on magnetism; and the remainder of the book is devoted to voltaic electricity, electrical instruments, and measurements. There is an appendix, which, besides some addi- tional practical hints to teacher and pupil, furnishes a price-list of instruments and materials needed for the laboratory and laboratory workshop, and complete plans, drawn to scale, of three recently established school laboratories. These will be of great service to those contemplating such additions to their school equipment ; and the book, as a whole, can be strongly recommended to all interested in the advancement of elementary instruction in physics. Among a few defects of minor importance may be mentioned the strict adherence, peculiar to English authors, to the concave mirror and scale for galvanometer and other purposes, omitting the con- sideration of the plane mirror and telescope method, which is often much better and much more available than the other. Taken in connection with the other series by the same authors, the title of this volume is unfortunate, and likely to lead to considerable con- fusion in making orders, references, or quotations. The New Astronomy. By SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY. Bos- ton, Ticknor. 8°. i “T HAVE written these pages, not for the professional reader, but with the hope of reaching a part of that educated public on whose support he is so often dependent for the means of extending the boundaries of knowledge. “Tt is not generally understood that among us not only the sup- port of the government, but with scarcely an exception every new private benefaction, is devoted to ‘the Old’ Astronomy, which is relatively munificently endowed already ; while that which I have here called ‘the New,’ so fruitful in results of interest and impor- tance, struggles almost unaided. “We are all glad to know that Urania, who was in the begin- ning but a poor Chaldean shepherdess, has long since become well- to-do, and dwells now in state. It is far less known than it should be, that she has a younger sister now among us, bearing every mark of her celestial birth, but all unendowed and portionless. It is for the reader’s interest in the latter that this book is a plea.” The purpose of Professor Langley’s book, as well as the charm- ing style in which it is written, are so well set forth in his brief preface, that we have quoted it entire, as above. Supplemented with the clear statement of the opening pages, that the prime object of the old astronomy has been to tell us were the heavenly bodies are, while the new endeavors to tell us wat they are, the reader has at once a clear idea of the scope and aim of this most interest- ing book. Though not written for the professional astronomer, none such can read it without interest and profit, even if for nothing more than as an excellent example of how to present his hard facts in a pleasing and attractive dress; while every intelligent reader will be pleased not only with the manner of presentation, but with the matter presented ; and so plain and easy is the pathway made, that the unprofessional reader has little idea of the months and years of patient investigation — much of it the author’s own — which have made these plain and easy statements possible. Rarely, too, or rather never before in an astronomical work, have engraver and publisher so happily united in giving a literary gem so beautiful an artistic setting. The first chapter especially, on ‘ Sun-Spots,’ is SCIENCE: 143 rich in beautiful drawings from the author’s own pencil while at Allegheny; and those who recall the wonderful frontispiece of Professor Young's excellent work, ‘The Sun,’ will desire to feast the eye upon the large number of equally fine drawings in the pres- ent work. Printed at the University Press of John Wilson & Son, Cambridge, Mass., and upon paper so heavy that the only draw- back is the reader's constant fear that he has turned three or four leaves at once, the whole is a beautiful specimen of the book- maker’s art, and a gem which every educated man should possess. We can only notice in the briefest way the contents of the eight chapters of the book. The first four are given up to the Sun (and after reading them we think the reader will join with us in a request to the compositor to set this with a capital S). Chapter I., under the title of ‘Spots on the Sun,’ treats of the photosphere, and con- tains reproductions of those beautiful drawings by the author which we have already mentioned. The second chapter, treating of the chromosphere and corona, naturally draws largely upon govern- ment eclipse-reports for its illustrations. While many of the latter cannot lay claim to much artistic excellence, they are useful as. illustrating very forcibly the difficulties attending the ordinary at- tempts to sketch the corona during the two or three minutes of a total eclipse, and the need that photography should supplant most of these except for the telescopic detail of the inner corona, which is too fine for the photographic plate, and for the extreme outer limits, for which the eye is much more sensitive. The interesting drawings of hydrogen-clouds and outbursts above the sun’s photo- sphere are naturally nearly all from the works of Young and Tac- chini, who have done so much in this field. Right here, in connec- tion with all the illustrations of the book, we would heartily com- mend the pains taken to indicate the original author or source of every illustration used, either directly under it or in the text close by. This is a matter in which some careless or unscrupulous: authors and editors need a sharp iesson. Chapters III. and IV. are devoted to the sun’s energy, and are the most interesting and instructive in the book. Space will not here allow us to note the exceeding number of interesting features dealt with, and we imagine that the author must have felt over- whelmed in trying to deal at all fully, even in forty-seven pages, with the wealth of important phenomena resulting from the outflow of solar energy. We cannot refrain, however, from noting the author's striking experiment of comparing solar radiation directly with the ‘pour’ of molten steel from a Bessemer ‘ converter,’ — our hottest known source of artificial radiations on a large scale. The result showed that the solar surface, even after being dimmed by absorption in its own and the terrestrial atmospheres, gave out, foot for foot, at least eighty-seven times as much heat as the surface of molten steel, and was more than five thousand times as bright. In speaking of the exhaustion of the coal-fields, our source of power, the author gives a striking picture of the fair green England of three hundred years ago as compared with its present smoky skies and soot-blackened surface, where the whole island throbs. with the coal-driven engine, and the waters are churned by the swift steamer; and then, in the 7é/e of prophet, he unfolds the future of a few hundred years, when almost certainly the ‘all-beholding sun‘ will send his beams “ through rents in the ivy-grown walls of deserted factories, upon silent engines brown with rust, while the mill-hand has gone to other lands, the rivers are clean again, the harbors show only white sails, and England's ‘black country ’ is green once more! To America, too, such a time may come, though at a greatly longer distance.” And the fourth chapter closes with the following striking paragraph : — “Future ages may see the seat of empire transferred to regions. of the earth now barren and desolated under intense solar heat, — countries which, for that very cause, will not improbably become the seat of mechanical and thence of political power. Whoever finds the way to make industrially useful the vast sun-power now wasted on the deserts of North Africa or the shores of the Red Sea will effect a greater change in men’s affairs than any conqueror in history has done; for he will once more people those waste places with the life that swarmed there in the best days of Carthage and of old Egypt, but under another civilization, where man no longer shall worship the sun as a god, but shall have learned to make it his servant.” 144 The four remaining chapters are devoted to the planets and the moon, meteors, comets, and the stars. All equally interesting with the opening chapters, they deserve equal mention, but space forbids. Suffice it to say that they bring our information of new discoveries in these interesting fields up to date; some beautiful reproductions of the photographs of stellar spectra, taken at the Harvard College Observatory, being among the latest important additions to our knowledge of stellar constitution. In conclusion, we hope that this excellent work of Professor Langley may go far towards its avowed object in arousing an inter- est in the new, not versus, but to an equal degree of importance with, the old astronomy. There can be no question that it is of as much importance to mankind to-day to know wha/ the heavenly bodies are, as where they are; and the endowments to obtain men and apparatus (the former more scarce, and the latter more complicated and perhaps expensive) with which to answer the first question should be forthcoming. In the report, some years ago, of the Nationai Academy of Sciences, upon the importance of moving the National Observatory to a new site, the establishment of a physical observatory under government auspices was recommended. This is directly in the line of the purpose of this book, and we trust that the latter may be one of the active factors in bringing into be- ing, under government auspices, an observatory wherein the spec- troscope, bolometer and galvanometer, polariscope, and photometer, with the rapid photographic plate as the adjunct of all, may stand on an equally important footing with the meridian-circle and the equatorial with only filar-micrometer attached. NOTES AND NEWS. THE latest results of the work of Prof. Josiah P. Cooke and Mr. T. W. Richards give as the atomic weight of oxygen, 15.869 + 0.0017. This is from a paper presented at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences March 14. — Hartleben’s great atlas, ‘ Die Erde in Karten und Bildern,’ is now well advanced. So far, twenty numbers have been issued. The maps are good lithographs, clearly drawn, well lettered, and not overcrowced with names. They serve admirably the purpose of the general reader. The accompanying text is profusely illus- trated, and contains numerous views, costumes, etc. The physical geography is now complete, and is followed bya succinct geography of Europe. The price of the whole atlas is only $14.75. —In Sczence of March 9, p. 121, 1st column, 29th line from bot- tom, for ‘90 mm.’ read ‘65 mm.’ —In Sczence of Feb. 24, p. 96, ist column, last line, for ‘108’ read ‘118.’ LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Unusual Dermal Ossifications. IN examining the collection of Zestudznata in the Yale College Museum, | found in specimens of Zes¢udo Lezthzz, Giinth., dermal ossifications, which, so far as I am aware, have never been de- scribed. Each fore-limb of this small tortoise is furnished with a well- ossified shield, which covers the anterior and inner part of the limb. This shield is composed of suturally united ossicles, covered by scales, and corresponding in number to the large scales on the fore-arm. Each ossicle is smooth on the inner side, and elevated into an eccentric tubercle on the outer side. This condition seems important for the explanation of the origin of the carapace and plastron of the Testud¢nzata, and supports my view on this point published elsewhere (Zo0/. Anzezger, Nov. 22, 1886). There can be no doubt that this peculiar shield of the fore-foot originally consisted of small, free ossicles. Probably different stages of this condition will be found, if these parts are carefully examined in the Zestudinzde. The elemental form of the carapace was, there seems to be little doubt, exactly the same. There appeared at first distinct ossicles in the skin. With further development in this direction, these ossifications touched each other, forming a closed shield, the single elements of which were connected by suture. SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. No. 268 As soon as this shield became connected with the endoskeleton: it found a support, many of the sutures disappeared, and the ele- ments of the shield were disposed according to the arrangement of the endoskeleton. In the above way the costal plates were developed. The ossicles, finding a support on the ribs, co-ossified with them and with each other. The plastron has developed in the same way. The basis of the plastron probably consisted of dermal ossifications, generally called ‘abdominal ribs.’ By the increase of these dermal ossifications, the ‘abdominal ribs,’ the clavicles, and interclavicle were absorbed, forming a solid shield, in which the clavicles and interclavicle were transformed into epiplastron and endoplastron. The oldest condition of the plastron of the Zestudznata, therefore, was solid, and not pierced by fontanelles. The oldest known representative of the Zes¢udznata, Progano- chelys (G. BAUR, ‘Ueber den Ursprung der Extremitaten der Ichthyopterygia,’ in Berzcht ziber die xx. Vers. des Oberrhein. Geol. Vereins, Stuttgart, 1887, pp.17, 18), from the triassic of Wiirttemberg, confirms this opinion. Embryology has nothing to say in this regard. The whole plastron (with exception, perhaps, of the epiplastron) is of dermal origin, and has nothing to do with the endoskeleton; but the ontogenesis of the exoskeleton is of no value for phylogenesis. There are many authors (especially Cope and Dollo) who think that the representatives of the Dermochelydide (Sphargidide), Dermochelys de Bl. and Psephophorus v. Meyer, are original forms ; and Cope has created a peculiar group, ‘ Athece,’ for these and some allied genera (Profostega, Cope; Protosphargzs, Cap.). I cannot agree with this opinion, but consider these forms as the most specialized of the sea-turtles. One group has developed from a form of Testudznata with well- developed carapace and plastron, by dissolution of their elements, into single ossicles, connected by suture (Dermochelys, Psepho- phorus). The other group has developed from a form of Testudz- mata by rudimentation cf the costal plates (Protostega, Proto- sphargts). The enormous Chelonza Hoffmannz, Gray, which has the costal plates very little developed, and the marginals very slender, shows characters between the Chelonzzde and Protosteg¢d@, especially Protosphargts, and must rank asa different genus, which I propose to call ‘ Ad/oplewron’ (the generic characters are, costal plates, even in the adult, very little developed, covering only one-half of the rib ; marginals very slender). There have never been found mosaic-like dermal ossifications, neither in Profostega norin Protosphargzs. The plates considered by Professor Cope as probably belonging to the carapace belong to the plastron. The marginals have not disappeared, as in the De7- mochelydide, but are present ; those of Protosphargzs, described by Capellini as probably phalangeal bones, resemble very much these elements in A//opleuron. Sea-turtles have probably been developed at different times and in different localities, in the same way as the gigantic tortoises. The species of the Galapagos Islands are not directly related to those of the islands round Madagascar. Both have originated from two different stocks,—the first from some form of the American continent, the second from some one of African type. _ G. BAUR. New Haven, Conn., March 4. End of the Swindler. Ir will give undoubted satisfaction to his many victims to learn that the ‘swindling geologist,’ whose depredations have been so frequently noted in your columns, has been lately convicted of steal- ing a number of microscopic objectives from the University of Cin- cinnati, and sentenced to spend five years at hard labor in the Ohio Penitentiary. He was sentenced under the name of O. L. Syrski, but admitted having pursued his calling under a variety of a/zases, such as Taggart, Vasile, Ellison, Cameron, Douglas, Strong, Lee, Arundal, and Lesquereux. A valuable microscopic objective, found in his possession, awaits identification by the owner. CHAS. H. GILBERT. Cincinnati, March 9. Anh ~* Marcu 23, 1888. ] A Critique of Psychophysic Methods. I READ with care the comment by Dr. Boas upon my article in the Amerzcan Journal of Psychology, and carry away from it the impression that there is less difference of opinion between us than Dr. Boas supposes. The question is not one of fact, but of in- terpretation. Weall admit that there is a psychophysic fact for which the word ‘threshold’ is a good name; but the important question is, How shall we theoretically understand the conception, and what place shall we allow it in the development of an experi- mental psychology? Fechner makes it rank as by all means the most important factor in psychophysics, and is willing to sacrifice Weber's law before yielding the supreme and fundamental fact of the threshold. He is led to this view by the method of the ‘just observable difference,’ and by the neglect of the other two methods. This entire structure I regard as reared upon an illogical basis, and a psychophysics based upon the mathematical methods as very dif- ferent and much sounder than the other. The threshold as a practical, empirical fact, I not only fully admit, but even suggest methods of further developing its utility ; but its theoretical impor- tance with reference to the establishment of a psychophysic law I regard as almost 727, its true importance lying in another direction. This, I trust, defines my position clearly. A single illustration may not be out of place. Dr. Boas says that a balance has a threshold, and I accept the comparison. This threshold is something to be eliminated, and that balance is the finest that has the least of this characteristic. The theoretical balance upon which mechanics works out its principles has no threshold. But apart from this, I think the physicist will agree with me that it leads to more useful and scientific conceptions to regard every particle that is placed upon the pan of the balance as producing an effect alike in kind, and differing only in degree from that produced by a mass suffi- cient to turn the balance. There is no point where a new factor enters, and the turning of the balance is a merely empirical fact. Returning to the psychophysical methods, I should state the case thus: it is generally admitted that the basis of the method of the “right and wrong cases,” as of the ‘average error,” ultimately rests upon the fact that the probabilities of my making errors of various degrees follow the path traced by the probability curve. This is the fundamental fact of the entire science of psychophysics. Now, this curve is a com¢znuous one, and has no break in it, no point characterized by any special peculiarity, no threshold in any true sense. A word as to my misrepresenting the views of my opponents, The important point is, not what the upholders really do say, but what logically follows from the position they take. If they do not say what I attribute to them, it is because they are inconsistent; and I have guarded myself against this misunderstanding by at times stating, and elsewhere unmistakably implying, that I was dealing with the logical consequences of the threshold theory, and not with that particular portion of it that its adherents happened to employ. The second point in Dr. Boas’s criticism is a real difference of opinion between us. He thinks ‘doubtful’ answers should be admitted in experimentation : I most emphatically object to them. In my paper I regarded the objections to allowing such answers as so necessarily following from the theory of the ‘right and wrong cases’’ method, that a full statement of the reasons was super- fluous. Any one of half a dozen reasons is enough to show the impropriety of the ‘‘doubtful’”’ answers. For instance: it is ad- mitted that the methods should be as comparable, one with the other, as possible. Now, the method of the “average error” depending upon the same principle as that of the “ right and wrong cases,” allows no doubtful answers. Again: there is no reason for singling out ‘‘ doubtful” answers as any thing peculiar. Why not make a special rubric of unusually confident answers? And if we do, as Dr. Boas suggests, make a threshold where doubtful answers no longer occur, that threshold will vary so much in differ- ent individuals, etc., that it will invalidate a large share of the results. And what shall I say when some one else proposes a threshold for another degree of confidence, say, the point where one is sufficiently sure of the correctness of one’s answer to risk money upon it, and soon, ad zmfinztum ? If you mean that this subjective feeling is worth taking account of, I fully concord, and will wel- SIGUE IN Clsy 145 come the skilful observation of this feeling as an important contri- bution to psychophysics. JOSEPH JASTROW. Baltimore, March 12. On the Sense of Taste.! AT the Philadelphia meeting of the American Association we presented a paper upon the ‘ Delicacy of the Special Senses,’ —a topic upon which we have since continued our investigations from time to time.” The method pursued in the following experiments was as fol- lows : — Solutions of known strength were made of the substances to be tasted; then, by successive dilutions, several series of solutions were made from these, each one in the series being of one-half the strength of the preceding one. The bottles containing these solu- tions, and several bottles of water, were placed without regard to order, and the person to be experimented upon was requested to separate them into their proper groups by tasting them. In each series the last solution was so dilute as to be beyond recognition. All unrecognized solutions were classified as water. We chose for our tests the following typical substances. strength of the initial solution of each is given below. The . (Bitter) quinine, one part in 10,000 parts of water. . (Sweet) cane-sugar, one part in 10 parts of water. - (Acid) sulphuric acid, one part in 100 parts of water. . (Alkaline) sodium bicarbonate, one part in ten parts of water. . (Saline) sodium chloride, one part in 1co parts of water. in RWW OH The attempt was made to include other substances, as aromatics, in the test; but it was soon found that the odor betrayed their presence without the aid of the sense of taste. Other investigators have added astringents as a sixth class, but these substances are so often recognizable by odor, color, or some special taste not purely astringent, that it was thought best not to include them. Tests by the method above described were made upon 128 per- sons ; 82 being male, and 46 female observers. The following table shows the amount of each substance which could be detected by the average observer : — Substances. | Male Observers detected. |Female Observers detected. Quinine 1 part in 392,000 I part in 456,000 Sugar ° 5 all SE eT 199 Ty 8 204 Acid . F ¢ <1) ele 22080 | Fiver 3,280 Soda . 5 2 am SS yg 98 | SS ee 126 ‘Sal tauaes ' 9 6 Co ah cate. 240 Be OOS seretste) From the above results the following conclusions may be drawn :— 1. The sense of taste is vastly more delicate for bitter substances than for any others. It is possible to detect quinine in a solution that is only zj55 the strength of a sugar solution, and we have pre- viously shown (/oc. czt.) that quinine is only +5 as bitter as strich- nine. 2. The order of delicacy is, bitter, acid, salt, sugar, and alkali. 3. The sense of taste appears to be more delicate in women than in men. This is true in the case of all the substances excepting salt. As we had found a similar difference in favor of female ob- servers in an earlier and independent set of experiments, which agreed in every essential particular with the results of the present test, we do not regard it as an accidental difference, or as likely to disappear in more extended investigations. Marked differences in the delicacy of the sense of taste of differ- ent individuals were met with in the course of these experiments. 1 Paper read at the New York meeting of the American Association for the Ad- vancement of Science, August, 1887. 2 See Relative Bitterness of Different Bitter Substances, by E. H. S. Bailey and E. C. Franklin, in Proceedings ofthe Kansas Academy of Sciences, 1885; Relative Sweetness of Sugars, by E. H.S. Bailey, in Report of Kansas Board of Agriculture, 1884; The Sense of Smell, by E. L. Nichols and E. H.S. Bailey, in Mature, xxxv. P- 74. 146 There were persons who could place in the proper class, solu- tions containing one part of quinine in 500,000, and other sub- stances in correspondingly high dilution, while some failed to detect solutions of more than three times the above strength. In how far this was due to education, we are unable to say. Among the men ‘examined were many who have been accustomed to handling and recognizing drugs and medicines, and yet even these were fre- quently surpassed by female observers who had no such training. In some previous experiments upon the sense of smell, of which an account appeared in WVature (loc. czt.), we noted almost as marked superiority on the part of male observers. In a few cases, the ability to detect a dilute sweet was accom- panied by a lack of ability to detect dilute bitters. This peculiarity was, however, far from being a general one. As quinine is so largely used as a medicine, especially in the Western States, it was thought that its habitual use might dull the sense of taste for this particular substance. Among the observers subjected to our experiments, the use or disuse of quinine seemed to have had no especial influence. The experiments just described suggested several interesting questions upon which we were unable to enter. How many, for instance, of these substances, taken of equal delicacy-strength, could be detected together in a mixture, in what order would they be detected, and by what portion of the tongue or organs of taste ? Would all observers recognize them in the same order as to time ? What would be the influence of the temperature of a solution tasted, upon the delicacy of the sense of taste? As to the degree of accuracy with which our results give the average delicacy of the human sense of taste for the substances in question, we are led to believe from their substantial agreement with determinations based upon the previous set of experiments already alluded to, alike in the matter of absolute delicacy, of rela- tive delicacy, for the various substances used, and of relative sensi- tiveness of male and female observers, that they are but slightly influenced by individual idiosyncrasies, and may be regarded as fairly representative. E. H.S. BAILEy. E. L. NICHOLS. On New Facts relating to Eozoon Canadense. In the February number of the Geologzcal Magazzne there is an interesting article by Sir J. W. Dawson, ‘On New Facts relating to Eozoon Canadense. In paragraph 9, ‘Continuity and Character of the Containing Deposits,’ there are some remarks respecting the stratigraphy of the Archean or older crystalline rocks of Canada upon which I wish to make a few comments. The author does not indicate what are, in his opinion, “ the ex- travagant statements respecting the older crystalline rocks now being made,” nor by whom they have been made. Neither does he state what portion of the Laurentian system is referred to under the term ‘Middle Laurentian,’ nor where he has recently exam- ined it. I am not aware that Sir W. Logan ever used the term Middle Laurentian. As regards the ‘continuity of the great limestones’ over certain areas, and their intimate association and interbedding with the gneisses, both orthite and anorthite, it has, so far as I know, never been questioned. In some cases, however, the limestones are very irregular, and occur in longish, more or less lenticular bands interleaved with the gneisses, often in such a man- ner as to suggest an origin posterior to that of the gneisses, or, rather, to that of the strata from which they have been produced. It is, I think, more than probable that original sedimentation of calcareous matter, and subsequent segregation, have both operated in producing the phenomena now observed in connection with these great limestone belts, the latter somewhat analogous to that which has produced the great ‘quartz belts’ in the Nova Scotia gold- fields. I must entirely dissent from the views expressed by the author in correlating any of the so-called Upper Laurentian anorthosites of the vicinity of St. Jerome, or elsewhere, with the Huronian rocks west of Lake Superior. The massive anorthosites, as I have elsewhere stated, are clearly intrusive, and the surrounding gneisses and lime- stones do not pass beneath them; and there are no grounds what- -ever for regarding them as an unconformable Upper Laurentian SGIPNGE: [Vo.. XI. No. 268 series. On p. 4, ‘Report of Progress, Geological Survey of Canada’ 1879-80,’ I wrote, “If the foregoing determinations by Mr. Vennor, which are given in his own words, are correct, they seem very con- clusively to prove, what I have already stated to be my opinion, that the labradorite or Norian rocks of Hunt do not constitute an Upper Laurentian formation, but occur in part as unstratified intru- sive masses, and in part as interstratifications with the orthoclase gneisses, quartzites, and limestones of the Laurentian system.” It is satisfactory to find that Sir William Dawson is now disposed to admit that the “ great masses of labradorite may be intrusive ;”" but when these are eliminated, nothing remains of the Upper Laurentian as defined in any of these areas, from the Moisie River to St. Jerome; and unless the interstratified anorthite gneisses are made Upper Laurentian, the term, so far as the Norian or labradorite rocks of the areas named are concerned, must be abandoned, and I would reiterate what I wrote in 1884 (‘Descriptive Sketch of the Physical Geography and Geology of Canada, 1884’): — “As regards the so-called Norian or Upper Laurentian forma- tion, I have no hesitation in asserting that it has as such no exist- ence in Canada, its theoretical birthplace. Wherever these Norian rocks have been observed, they are either intimately and conforma- bly associated with the ordinary orthoclase and pyroxene gneisses, or they occur as intrusive masses when they present no gneissoid or bedded structure. They clearly cut the surrounding gneiss, and are probably due to volcanic or other igneous agency in the Lauren- tian age.” Considerable further investigation since the above was written has entirely supported the view then expressed. ALFRED R. C. SELWYN. Ottawa, March 13. Queries. 30. POISONOUS JELLY-FISH.— Last summer, while bathing on the Maine coast, I had what was to me a novel and not very en- joyable experience. While swimming I happened by accident to kick some sort of an animal. For an instant the feeling that passed over my feet was like a slight electric shock. Of course, I turned to see what the animal was, and, from the glimpse which I had, I should call it a red jelly-fish. For three or four hours after, my feet were slightly inflamed and very painful, the feeling being like that caused by a burn. Afterwards I learned that a certain kind of jelly-fish was said by fishermen thereabouts to be poisonous. Can you tell me through your columns about this animal, what it is, and how it stings, shocks, or poisons? What is the remedy for its poisons ? Zoo. Boston, Mass., Feb. 29. Answers. 30. POISONOUS JELLY-FISH. — The above doubtless refers to the effects of our common large red jelly-fish (Cyanea arctica). Many jelly-fishes have the power of stinging soft-skinned animals, and in this way ordinarily kill and secure their prey; but there are only a few species that have nettling threads powerful enough or long enough to sting the human skin. On our New England coast the only ones that are able to sting thus are the Cyazea, referred to above, and the Portuguese man-of-war (PAysadza); but the latter is not common, and is rarely, if ever, found on the shore north of Cape Cod. The Cvamea stings many persons very severely, espe- cially if the tentacles come in contact with a tender part of the skin, as the face, lips, eyes, or between the fingers, and of course on any part of the body that is ordinarily covered ; but in my expe- rience they will not sting the palms of the hand. The sensation is much like that of the sting of a nettle ordinarily ; but in some cases, or with some persons particularly sensitive to the poison, it results in numbness, swellings, and subsequent eruptions, and even ulcera- tions. The PAysalza stings much more severely than Cyazea, and is able to cause temporary paralysis of the arm or leg; and in some experiments it has been found to act in such a way as to affect the heart: perhapsin a severe case it might even cause paralysis of the heart. The nature of the poison is unknown, but it must be very powerful, for the quantity is minute. INSIDE Ws New Haven, March 10. Marcu 23, 1888. | SCIENCE. BOOK-NOTES. —‘Recent Developments of Electricity as an Industrial Art, by Schuyler S. Wheeler, is the subject of a four-page supplement in the number of Harfer’s Weekly published recently. —D. C. Heath & Co. of Boston will issue soon ‘Ten Years of Massachusetts,’ by Ray- mond L. Bridgman. It pictures the develop- ment of the Commonwealth as seen in its laws, regarding the laws as the expression of the ‘common sense’ of the people. They also publish, March 10, Emile Souvestre’s ‘Un Philosophe Sous Les Toits,’ edited by Prof. W. H. Fraser of the University of Toronto. The ‘Philosophe’ was awarded a prize by the French Academy, asa work calculated to promote the advancement of morality. Calendar of Societies. Philosophical Society, March t7.— John Murdoch, An Arch of Ice formed by Horizontal Pressure ; H. G. Ogden, Distortion in Plane-Table Sheets; William Hallock, The Flow of Solids, Engineers’ Club, Philadelphia. March. 3. — A. Wells Robinson, Dredging Machinery; C. Henry Roney, The Printing Telegraph Apparatus of the International Print- ing Telegraph Co.; Morris P. Janney, An Elec- tric Water Level Indica’or, for Steam Boilers. Washington. Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, New Haven. March 21. — Simeon E. Baldwin, The Roman and American Law of Undutiful Wills. Boston Society of Natural History. March 21. — F. W. Putnam, The Great Ser- pent Mound in Adams County, O.; J. Walter Fewkes, Origin of the Present Form of the Ber- mudas. Soctety of Arts, Boston. March 22. —T. M. Drown, Chemical Analy- sis of Drinking-Water; William F. Chester, Johnson Heat Regulating System. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Boston. March 14.— David G. Lyon, Historical Study at Babylon in the Sixth Century, B. C. ; Edward S. Ritchie, An Instrument for Deter- mining the Direction and Velocity of Water- Currents below the Surface. Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston. March 14. — Percival Lowell, An Ascent of Shirane San, Japan; Edward S. Holden and R. B. Lawrence, The Lick Observatory. March 20.—J. Ritchie, jun., Account of the Winter Trip to Jackson, N.H.; Joseph H. Sears, A Trip through the Jotunheim Moun- tains, Norway. Engineers’ Club, St. Louis. March 7. — Professor Gale, Power by Belting. Transmission of Sctence Club, Lawrence, Kan. March 9.—¥. B. Miller, Experience on a District Telegraph; Harry Buckingham, The Argo Smelter; E. H. S. Bailey, The Constitu- tion of Matter. NEW MAGAZINE—THE SWISS Devoted to spreading a love of CROSS nature among the people. Edited by HARLAN H. 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ABAONL he Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn., organized 1864, issues both Life Policies and Accident Policies. Only large accident company in America, Only $5 a year to professional and business men for each $1,000 insurance, with $5 Has All policies non-forfeitable. weekly indemnity. paid policy-holders nearly $11,000,000, All claims paid, without discount, and immediately on receipt of satisfactory proof. SClHENCE- SPRING AND SUMMER DRESS GOODS. JAMES McGREERY & CO. are now Offering the following lines of Dress Goods: Check and Striped Cheviots 44- ineb, 75c.; 54-inch, $5c. and $1. 00; worth $1.00 and $1.2 The above are remarkable aoa ORDERS ) ee any part of the country BY will receive careful and prompt MAIL ) attention. Mention this paper. JAMES McCREERY & C0. BROADWAY AND ELEVENTH ST,, NEW YORK. HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 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THE AMERICAN WRITING MACHINE CO., New York Branch, 237 Broadway. HARTFORD, CONNe JOHN HASTINGS= =A=R=HART= =JOS=TRIPP, Prest. Te VPrest. BRAN CN AT 728: 3.CHESTNUT STi 77S PHIIEADELPHIA: PA FOR ANGE ice “ILLUSTRATE VE AND ADVERT SING DURPOSES 2223 BF APann Pes 77 PiACEs EW YORK? StxtH YEAR. VoL. XI. No. 269. NEW YORK, MARCH 30, 1888. SINGLE CoplEs, TEN CENTS, $3.50 PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE, Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Olass Mail-Matter. Editorial ; : : : 5 nly The Dilatory Government Printing. — The Scientific Work in the Agricultural Department. — Annual Report of the New York State Reformatory, — Anthropometrical Method of Identifying Criminals. — Exhibition of School-Work in Phil- adelphia. - Address of the President of the National Geographic Society : . : . 148 Water-Spouts off the Atlantic Coast of the United States. : 2 : 5 1G) Scientific News in Washington. The Flow of Solids : 5 F . 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FORMS OF ANIMAL LIFE, a Manual of Comparative Anat- omy, with Descriptions of Selected Types: By the late George Rolleston, D.M., F.R.S. Second edition, revised and enlarged by W. Hatchell Jackson, M.A., F.L.S., Natural Science Lecturer, St. John’s College, Oxford. Royal 8vo. Oxford, Clarendon Press, $9. COMPLETION OF PROFESSOR PRESTWICH’S GEOLOGY. GEOLOGY: Chemical, Physical, and Stratigraphical. By Joseph Prestwich, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., Professor of Geology in the Uni- versity of Oxford. In two Vols. Vol. 2, Stratigraphical and Phys- ical. With Maps and Illustrations. Royal8vo. Oxford, Clarendon Press. $9. [This work is a general treatise on Geology adapted both for elementary and ad- vanced students. Vol. x. treats of questions in chemical and physical Geology, and special attention is paid to such subjects, among others, as hydro-geglogy, the geolog- ical bearings of the recent deep-sea explorations, volcanic action, joints, mineral veins, the age of mountain ranges, and metamorphism. Vol. II. treats of stratigraphy and palaeontology, and touches upon various theoretical questions. The author advccates the xon-uniformitarian views of geology.] PRACTICAL PHysICS FOR SCHOOLS. PRACTICAL PHYSICS FOR SCHOOLS AND THE JUN- IOR STUDENTS OF COLLEGES. By Balfour Stewart, M.A., LL.D., F.R.S., and W. W. Haldane Gee, B.Sc. Vol. I. Electricity and Magnetism. 16mo. 60 cents. The book has great merit. . . all interested in the advancement of elementary instruction in physics. — Sczence. HUXLEY AND MarTINn’s Briotocy. NEw EDITION. A COURSE OF ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN PRACTICAL BIOLOGY. ByT.H. Huxley, LL D., F.R.S., assisted by H. N. Martin, M.A., M.D.. D.Sc., F.R.S. Revised Edi- tion. Extended and Edited by G. B. Howes and D. M. Scott, M.A., Ph.D. With a Preface by Professor Huxley, F.R.S. 12mo. $2.60. MACMILLAN & CO., 112 FOURTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, - Asawhole, can be strongly recommended to | MAP-MAKING. publishers or others de- siring to have maps made, either from relief plates or by lithograph, should write to us for estimates before placing their orders elsewhere. Any work entrusted to us will be carefully made under the super- vision of our geographical edit- or, Dr. Franz Boas. N. D. C. HODGES, Publisher of Sczezce, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. 1, SOMEIN CIE: (Vor. XI; Noi 269 Revolutionary Shorthand Book. “EXACT PHONOGRAPHY ; A System with CONNECTIBLE STROKE VOWEL SIGNS,” by Geo. R. Bishop, Stenographer of INF Stock Exchange, member (and in 1883 President) N.Y. State Stenogr’rs’ Ass’n, &c. Complete Text-Book, — adapted to SELF-INSTRUCTION, — of a REVOLU- TIONARY SYSTEM, that discards the indefinite (vow- el) part of the common phonography, and secures, by a radical innovation, EXACTNESS with BREVITY. Specially adapted to Legal and other Technical work. A phonographic author writes of it: —“ On technical mat- ter, you are ahead of any form of Pitman’s phonog- raphy.”’ ‘The author claims equal superiority on co7— mon, monosyllabic words, SHARPLY and SURELY DISTINGUISHING and WITHOUT SACRIFICE of BREVITY, where the old phonography makes no dis- tinction. A MODERN WORK, ADAPTED to MOD- ERN REQUIREMENTS. Five pp. Latin Law Max- ims, in shorthand, illustrate its adaptation to various lan- guages. Of 260 pp., 222 are engraved, — illustrating all ‘principles with unprecedented fulness. : E, D, EASTON, Washington, D,C., official Stenographer in Star Route and Guiteau trials, says of the work: *‘Am ‘satisfied that by the system therein so fully set out, stu- dents may learn to write shorthand with greater certainty and precision than by any of the older systems.”” ISAAC S, DEMENT, Chicago, Speed Contestant at N.Y. State Stenogr’rs’ Ass’n meeting, 1887, says: ‘* You have certainly captured the prize on Zeg#bzdity.” THEO, C. ROSE, official Supreme Court Stenog’r, EI- mira, N.Y.,says: ‘I think itis a great improvement in the art phonographic, and will be largely adopted by the knights of the lively quill.” W. H. SLOCUM,official Supreme Court Stenog’r, Buffalo, says: ‘‘ Must congratulate you on your success In pro- ducing to the world a reasonable system. of shorthand, and ‘I think the fraternity owe you their hearty thanks for the able manner in which you have demonstrated the feasibility of exact phonography.” ‘ E, E, HORTON, Toronto, official Stenog’r to High Court of Justice, Ontario, says: “ The extent to which Exact Phonography admits of the application of the expedient of phrase-writing, with easy and natural joinings, 1s something remarkable.”’ OWEN FITZSIMONS, Law Stenog’r, with Burrill, Za- briskie & Burrill, N.Y., says: ‘‘ Have compared some of the reading exercises at the end of your book with the ‘same matter written according to the Pitmanand Munson systems, and while the latter have nothing the better of you in point of brevity, Definiteness is entirely on your side.” Price, bound in flexible leather, $2. Circulars sent. Address GEO. R. BISHOP, N.Y. Stock Exchange, N.Y. City. PORTRAIT OF AGASSIZ.—Chapter 94 of The Agassiz Association has for sale photographs of Prof. Louis Agassiz. 75 cents. Address C. B, STEBBINS, 30 Day St., Somerville, Mass. HELPS TO SELF-CULTURE. The following pamphlets are published under the aus- pices of the NationaL Bureau or Unity Cvuss, organ- ized in Boston in May, 1887, with Rev. Edward Everett Hale,D.D., as President,and with a Board of Directors of twelve men and women, residing east and west. It has at present two head centres,— at Chicago and Boston. Its object is to render assistance in the study of literary, philanthropic and religious problems. No. x. Uniry Ciuss. By Emma Endicott Marean. ro cents. No. 2. RopERT BROWNING’S POETRY. the Chicago Browning Society. 25 cents. No. 3. OuTLINE Stup1Es In GEORGE ELIOT. P. Woolley. 10 cents. No. 4. THE LEGEND oF Hamtet. By George P. Han- son. 25 cents. No. 5. PROGRESS FROM PovERTY: REVIEW AND CRIT- icism OF Henry GeorGe. By Giles B. Stebbins. 25 cents. No. 6. 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By it I was enabled last evening to learn the poem ‘Stabat Mater,’ in Latin, It took a little time, but the results were marvelous.’’ Catalogue and prospectus free. Mailed to any address on receipt of $1, by M. L. HOLBROOK CO., 13 Laight St., New York. GUSTAV E. STECHERT, 828 Broadway, New York. Importer of Scientific Books and Periodicals, Branches: Leipzig, Hospital Str. 16; Lon- don, 26 King William Str., Strand. SCOTT'S EMULSION OF PURE COD LIVER OIL 4ND HYPOPHOSPHITES Almost as Palatable as Milk. Containing the stimulating properties of the Iypophosphites combined with the Fattening and Strengthening qualities of Cod Liver Oil, the potency of both being largely increased. A Remedy for Consumption, For Wasting in Children. Por Scrofulous Affections. For Anemia and Debility. For Coughs, Colds & ‘lhroat Affections. 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SuBscRIPTIONS.— United States and Canada, $3.50 a year Great Britain and Europe, $4 a year Science Club-rates (in one remittance), I subscr. 2 “ 3 ae I I 4 I ADVERTISING RATES: mE GO 6 6 6'5 6 6 5 oF a AD eS Mastipagely siete & gO 00 1g page 1 time SORT Ona On ewes) Lower half of frontpage . . . . . . 41200 rcolumn .. 7 00 For small advertisements the rate will be 6 cents per agate line. The following discounts are allowed on yearly con- tracts : — mee 6 6 go S60 10% 2,500 lines . 5 od oO 15% eel OMO OG oo o> 6 oO ON ekES Advertisements must be acceptable in every respect. Copy received until Wednesday,10 A.M. SCIENCE is sent free to those who advertise in it as long as advertisement continues. a Sail FRIDAY, MARCH 30, 1888. THE ANNUAL INQUIRY into the management of the Government Printing-Office by a committee of the National House of Represen- tatives is now in progress. It matters little what conclusions this committee may reach, if, like its predecessors, it does not devise some method of hastening not only the printing of Congress, but also that of the departments. Nowhere is this delay more keenly felt than in the scientific bureaus. Much of the material gathered in these with great labor and expense loses value with delay in pub- lication. Take the work of the United States Geological Survey, for instance. Although the manuscript for the eighth annual re- port has been completed, the seventh has not yet been printed. The eighth report contains, among other things, an able dis- cussion of the Trenton limestone as a source of petroleum and natural gas, by Professor Orton, State geologist of Ohio. This is a subject upon which information is most eagerly sought in many parts of the country, and it should be published immediately. But there is no probability that it will appear for a year or more, and in the mean time no one can tell what new discoveries or develop- ments may be made. A large number of bulletins issued by the Geological Survey are also in the hands of the printer, with no im- mediate prospect of their being finished. The cost of printing these reports is very small in comparison with that of their preparation, and some means ought to be devised for their speedy appearance after the ‘copy’ goes to the printer. _ THERE ARE SEVERAL BRANCHES of scientific work pursued in Washington, at the expense of the government, which are still in need of proper, systematic, scientific direction. This is not true of the Coast Survey, Naval Observatory, the Geological Survey, the Fish Commission, or the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum. In each of these there is a general purpose which is in- telligently pursued. But in some other departments, notably in the Agricultural Department, while there is much valuable original in- vestigation going on, there is also much that is desultory and mis- directed. This is not so much attributable to the workers them- selves as to the lack of intelligent scientific direction. This trouble is aggravated, also, by the fact that in this and some other depart- ments the annual appropriations are made for specific purposes ; and it becomes necessary every year for the scientific worker to convince a new committee of the utility of his labors in order to secure the money to keep him employed until the next appropriation bill is passed. This leads not only to jealousies, but acts as a con- tinuous temptation to do showy work rather than that of permanent value, and to the exaggeration of the importance of some branches of inquiry and the neglect of others of greater moment. It has also resulted in the pursuance of some investigations far beyond the limit of economical or useful inquiry, and the publication of very expensive books, which are of no value whatever to the farm- ers of the country, and of very little to science. What is needed is that the heads of all such departments shall be selected both for their scientific attainments and for their executive ability, and that they shall not be considered as political officers, to be changed with each new administration. They should be men capable of passing an intelligent judgment upon the scientific work performed by their subordinates, and of giving to it proper direction. As it is, the heads of the several scientific bureaus of the Agricultural Depart- ment seem all to be working independently, some wisely and to useful purpose, and some otherwise. THE ANNUAL REPORT of the New York State Reformatory deserves a word of notice, and that word must always be one of hearty commendation. This institution, that embodies so many of the wisest and advanced views upon the true end in view in the treatment of the prisoner, and the ways that science teaches leads to such ends, is rapidly coming to be regarded as the pattern for reformatory institutions everywhere. The report for the year 1887 gives evidence that the work is going on, ever developing further improvements, and increasing the efficiency of those that have been adopted. The statistical tables showing the career of all those who have ‘graduated’ from the institution tell their own tale: in brief, they tell us that the public have a guaranty of protection from 90%, and of reformation from 83.3%, of all released, — certainly astounding figures. The portion of the reformatory process that strikes the average observer as most remarkable is the literary in- struction. That classes in English literature, in ethics, in psychol- ogy, should be attended with a deep interest by these men, seems surprising indeed ; and, when one learns the high character of this instruction, the surprise is doubled. Yet the facts are unmistak- able; and the statement of the literature instructor, that the beauties of literary production can readily arouse a sympathetic chord in the minds of those whom we regard as outcasts of society, strongly suggests the remark, that, were the educational institu- tions outside the reformatory conducted upon equally scientific principles, there would be less need of reformatories. The managers subscribe to this statement : “‘ The success which has attended the methods practised in the reformatory for the reclamation of first of- fenders is sufficiently assured and recognized among penologists and humanitarians generally, to warrant its more extended adoption in place of ordinary prison administration, which for so long a period has been in operation in the State of New York. Without attempt- ing to disparage that system, the attention of the Legislature is respectfully called to the reports of the general superintendent, the school secretary, and the physician of the reformatory, for more de- tailed information in support of this recommendation.” THE ANTHROPOMETRICAL METHOD of identifying criminals, originating from Paris, has been adopted in the prison at Joliet, Ill. In addition to the photograph of the prisoner, accurate measure- ments of his height, the length and width of his head, the length of the left middle and little finger, of the foot, the fore-arm, the ear, the stretch of the arms, description of scars, color of the eyes, and so on, are recorded; and it is thus possible to identify prisoners assuming false names with far greater ease than was before pos- sible. It is asserted, that, in the two years that the system has been in operation in Paris, 826 habitual criminals arrested under assumed names have been identified. Besides the practical utility of the system, it amasses very valuable statistical data contributing towards the natural history of the criminal Glasses. SUPERINTENDENT MACALISTER of Philadelphia has arranged for a representative exhibit of the school-work of that city from May 9 to May 12 next. The exhibit will be placed in Horticultural Hall, and will undoubtedly attract a large number of visitors from other cities. Under Mr. MacAlister, Philadelphia’s schools have become the most progressive in the country, and many other superintendents and principals will be glad to get the benefit of their methods and results. The exhibit will include all kinds of school-work that can be represented graphically or objectively; viz., manual-training, 148 industrial-art work, sewing, kindergarten work, drawing, map- drawing, penmanship, clay-modelling, and manual work of every kind produced in the schools. The pupils’ work will form the most important part of the exhibit, and will be a full and fair exhibit of the regular work done in the schools since September last. An interesting feature will be the historical exhibit. This will consist of two schoolrooms so fitted up as to represent and contrast the arrangement and conveniences for public-school education furnished by Philadelphia to-day and half a century ago. This exhibit will unquestionably prove a strong stimulus to progress and improve- ment to the teachers and pupils of the Philadelphia schools, as well as an attractive object of interest to those in other cities. ADDRESS OF HON. GARDINER G. HUBBARD, PRESI- DENT OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY, AT ITS FIRST MEETING, MARCH, 1888. I AM not a scientific man, nor can I lay claim to any special knowledge that would entitle me to be called a ‘geographer.’ I owe the honor of my election as president of the National Geo- graphic Society simply to the fact that I am one of those who desire to further the prosecution of geographic research. I possess only the same general interest in the subject of geography that should be felt by every educated man. By my election you notify the public that the membership of our society will not be confined to professional geographers, but will include that large number who, like myself, desire to promote special researches by others, and to diffuse the knowledge so gained among men, so that we may all know more of the world upon which we live. By the establishment of this society, we hope to bring together (1) the scattered workers of our country, and (2) the persons who desire to promote their researches. In union there is strength, and through the medium of a national organization we may hope to promote geographic research in a manner that could not be accom- plished by scattered individuals or by local societies ; we may also hope (through the same agency) to diffuse the results of geographic research over a wider area than would otherwise be possible. The position to which I have been called has compelled me to become a student. Since my election I have been trying to learn the meaning of the word ‘geography,’ and something of the his- tory of the science to which it relates. The Greek origin of the word (7 y7, ‘the earth;’ and ypdgw, ‘I write’) betrays the source from which we derived the science, and shows that it relates to a description of the earth. But the ‘earth’ known to the Greeks was a very different thing from the earth with which we are acquainted. To the ancient Greek it meant land; not all land, but only a limited territory, in the centre of which he lived. His earth com- prised simply the Persian Empire, Italy, Egypt, and the borders of the Black and Mediterranean Seas, besides his own country. Be- yond these limits the land extended indefinitely to an unknown distance, till it reached the borders of the great ocean which com- pletely surrounded it. To the members of this society the word ‘ earth’ suggests a very different idea. The term arouses in our minds the conception of an enormous globe suspended in empty space, one side in shadow, and the other bathed in the rays of the sun. The outer surface of this globe consists of a uniform, unbroken ocean of air, enclosing another, more solid surface (composed partly of land, and partly of water), which fairly teems with countless forms of animal and vegetable life. This is the earth of which geography gives us a description. To the ancients the earth was a flat plain, solid and immovable, and surrounded by water, out of which the sun rose in the east, and into which it set in the west. To them ‘ geography’ meant simply a description of the lands with which they were acquainted. Herodotus, who lived about the year 450 B.C., transmitted to posterity an account of the world as it was known in his day. We look upon him as the father of geography as well as of history. He visited the known regions of the earth, and described accurately what he saw, thus laying the foundations of comparative geog- raphy. SCIENCE [VoL. XI. No. 269 About 300 years B.C., Alexander the Great penetrated into hitherto unknown regions, conquered India and Russia, and founded the Macedonian Empire. He sent a naval expedition to explore the coasts of India, accompanied by philosophers or learned men, who described the new countries discovered and the character of their inhabitants. This voyage may be considered as originat- ing the science of political geography, or the geography of man. About the year 200 B.C., Eratosthenes of Cyrene, the keeper of the Royal Library at Alexandria, became convinced, from experi- ments, that the idea of the rotundity of the earth, which had been advanced by some of his predecessors, was correct, and attempted to determine upon correct principle the magnitude of the world. The town of Cyrene, on the river Nile, was situated exactly under the tropic, for he knew that on the day of the summer solstice the sun’s rays illuminated at noon the bottom of adeep well in that city. At Alexandria, however, on the day of the summer solstice, Eratos- thenes observed that the vertical finger of a sun-dial cast a shadow at noon, showing that the sun was not there exactly overhead. From the length of the shadow he ascertained the sun’s distance from the zenith to be 7°12’, or one-fiftieth part of the circumference of the heavens; from which he calculated, that, if the world was round, the distance between Alexandria and Cyrene should be one- fiftieth part of the circumference of the world. The distance be- tween these cities was 5,000 stadia, from which he calculated that the circumference of the world was fifty times this amount, or 250,- ooo stadia. Unfortunately we are ignorant of the exact length of a stadium, so we have no means of testing the accuracy of his deduction. He was the founder of mathematical geography. It became possible through the labors of Eratosthenes to de- termine the location of places on the surface of the earth by means of lines corresponding to our lines of latitude and longitude. Claudius Ptolemy, in the second century of the Christian era, made a catalogue of the positions of plans as determined by Eratos- thenes and his successors, and, with this as his basis, he made a series of twenty-six maps, thus exhibiting at a glance, in geographi- cal form, the results of the labors of all who preceded him. To him we owe the art of map-making, —the orzgznatzon of geo- graphic art. We thus see that when Rome began to rule the world, the Greeks had made great progress in geography. They already possessed comparative, political, and mathematical geography, and geographic art, or the art of making maps. Then came a pause in the progress of geography. The Romans were so constantly occupied with the practical affairs of life, that they paid little attention to any other kind of geography than that which facilitated the administration of their empire. They were great road-builders, and laid out highways from Rome to the farthest limits of their possessions. Maps of their military roads were made, but little else. These exhibited with accuracy the less and greater stations on the route from Rome to India, and from Rome to the farther end of Britain. Then came the decline and fall of Rome, and with it the com- plete collapse of geographical knowledge. In the dark ages, geog- raphy practically ceased to exist. In the typical map of the mid- dle ages, Jerusalem lay in the centre, with Paradise on the east, and Europe on the west. It was not until the close of the dark ages that the spirit of discovery was re-awakened. Then the ad- venturous Northmen from Norway and Sweden crossed the ocean to Iceland. : From Iceland they proceeded to Greenland, and even visited the mainland of North America about the year 1000 A.D., coasting as far north as New England; but these voyages led to no practi- cal results, and were forgotten, or looked upon as myths, until within a few years. For hundreds of years geography made but little advance, and the discoveries of five centuries were less than those now made in five years. In the fourteenth or fifteenth cen- tury the mariner’s compass was introduced into Europe from China, and it then became possible to venture upon the ocean far out of sight of land. Columbus, instead of coasting from shore to shore like the ancient Northmen, boldly set sail across the Atlantic. To many of his contemporaries it must have seemed madness to seek the east by thus sailing towards the west, and we need hardly wonder at the opposition experienced from his crew. The rotun- Marcu 30, 1888. | dity of the earth had become to him an objective reality, and in sublime faith he pursued his westward way. Expecting to find the East Indies, he found America instead. Five centuries had elapsed since the Northmen had made their fruitless voyages to these shores, and their labors had proved to be barren of results. The discovery of Columbus, however, immediately bore fruit. It was his genius and his perseverance alone that gave the New World to the people of Europe, and he is therefore rightfully enti- ~ tled to be called the discoverer of America. His discovery was fraught with enormous consequences, and it inaugurated a new era for geographic research. The spirit of discovery was quickened, and geographic knowledge advanced with a great leap. America was explored, Africa was circumnavigated. Magellan demon- strated the rotundity of the world by sailing due west until he reached his starting-point. Everywhere, all over the civilized world, the spirit of adventure was aroused. Navigators from England, Holland, France, and Spain rapidly extended the boundaries of geographical knowledge, while explorers penetrated into the inte- rior of the:new lands discovered. The mighty impetus given by ‘Columbus set the whole world in motion, and it has gone. on moving ever since with accelerated velocity. The great progress that has been made can hardly be realized without comparing the famous Borgia map, constructed about one hundred years before the discovery of America, with the modern maps of the same countries; or Hubbard’s map of New England, made two hundred years ago, with the corresponding map of to- ‘day. The improvements in map-making originated with Mercator, who, in 1556, constructed his cylindrical projection of the sphere. But it was only during the last one hundred years that great prog- ress was made. Much yet remains to be done before geographic art can fully accomplish its mission. The present century forms a new era in the progress of geog- raphy, —the era of organized research. In 1830 the Royal Geo- _ graphical Society of England was founded, but it already forms a landmark in the history of discovery. The Paris Society preceded it in point of time, and the other countries of Europe soon followed the example. Through these organizations, students and explorers have been encouraged and assisted, and information systematically collected and arranged. The wide diffusion of geographical knowl- edge through the medium of these societies, and the publicity of the discussions and criticism that followed, operated to direct the cur- rent of exploration into the most useful channels. Before organized effort, darkness gave way at every step. Each observer added fresh knowledge to the existing store, without unnecessary duplication of research. The reports of discoveries were discussed and criticised by the societies, and the contributions of all were co-ordinated into one great whole. America refuses to be left in the rear. The American Geo- graphical Society, so long and wisely presided over by Chief-Justice Daly, has kept pace with the foreign societies. Explorers from America are in every land and on every sea. Already she has contributed her quota of martyrs in the frozen North, and has led the way into the torrid regions of Africa. The people of Europe, through Columbus, opened up a new world for us; and we, through Stanley, have discovered a new world in the old, for them. Much has been done on land, little on the other three-quarters of the earth’s surface. But here America has laid the foundations of a new science, — the geography of the sea. Our explorers have mapped out the surface of the ocean, and dis- ‘covered the great movements of the waters. They have traced the southward flow of the Arctic waters to temper the climate of the torrid zone. They have followed the northward set of the heated waters of the equator, and have shown how they form those won- derful rivers of warm water that flow, without walls, through the colder waters of the sea, till they strike the western shores of Eu- rope and America, and how they render habitable the almost arc- tic countries of Great Britain and Alaska. They have even followed these warm currents farther, and shown how they penetrate the Arctic Ocean to lessen the rigors of the Arctic cold. Bravely but vainly have they sought for that zevzs fatuus of explorers — the open polar sea— produced by the action of the warm waters from the south. American explorers have sounded the depths of the ocean, and SCHINCE. 149 discovered mountains and valleys beneath the waves. They have found the great plateaus on which the cables rest that bring us into instantaneous communication with the rest of the world. They have shown the probable existence of a vast submarine range of moun- tains, extending nearly the whole length of the Pacific Ocean, — mountains so high that their summits rise above the surface, to form islands and archipelagoes in the Pacific. And all this vast region of the earth, which, a few years ago, was considered unin- habitable on account of the great pressure, they have discovered to be teeming with life. From the depths of the ocean they have brought living things, whose lives were spent under conditions of such pressure that the elastic force of their own bodies burst them open before they could be brought to the surface; living creatures whose self-luminous spots supplied them with the light denied them in the deep abyss from which they sprang, — abysses so deep that the powerful rays of the sun could only feebly penetrate to illumi- nate or warm. The exploring vessels of our Fish Commission have discovered in the deep sea, in one single season, more forms of life than were found by the ‘Challenger’ Expedition in a three-years’ cruise. Through their agency we have studied the geographical distribu- tion of marine life; and in our marine laboratories, explorers have studied the life-history of the most useful forms. The knowledge gained has enabled us to breed and multiply at will; to protect the young fish during the period of their infancy (when alone they are liable to wholesale destruction); finally to re- lease them in the ocean, in those waters that are most suitable to their growth. The fecundity of fish is so great, and the protection afforded them during the critical period of their life so ample, that it may now be possible to feed the world from the ocean, and set the laws of Malthus at defiance. Our geographers of the sea have shown that an acre of water may be made to produce more food for the support of man than ten acres of arable land. They have thrown open to cultivation a territory of the earth constituting three-quarters of the entire surface of the globe. And what shall we say of our conquests in that other vast terri- tory of the earth, greater in extent than all the oceans and the lands put together, — the atmosphere that surrounds the world. Here, again, America has led the way, and laid the foundations of a geography of the air. But a little while ago, and we might have truly said with the ancients, ‘“‘ The wind bloweth where it list- eth, and we know neither from whence it comes, nor whither it goes;’’ while now our explorers track the wind from point to point, and telegraph warnings in advance of the storm. In this department —the geography of the air—we have far out- stripped the nations of the world. We have passed the mob-period of research, when the observations of multitudes of individuals amounted to little, from lack of concentrated action. Organization has been effected. A central bureau has been established in Wash- ington, and an army of trained observers have been dispersed over the surface of the globe, who all observe the condition of the at- mosphere according to a preconcerted plan. The vessels of our navy, and mercantile marine of our own and other countries, have been impressed into the service: thus our geographers of the air are stationed in every land, and traverse the waters of every sea. Every day, at the same moment of absolute time, they observe and note the condition of the atmosphere at the part of the earth where they happen to be, and the latitude and longitude of their position. The collocation of these observations gives us a series of what may be termed ‘instantaneous photo-_ graphs’ of the condition of the whole atmosphere. The co-ordina- tion of the observations, and their geographical representation upon a map, are undertaken by a staff of trained experts in the central bureau in Washington, and through this organization we obtain a weather-map of the world for every day of the year. We can now study at leisure the past movements of the atmosphere, and from these observations we shall surely discover the grand laws that con- trol aerial phenomena. We shall then not only know, as we do at present, whence comes the wind and whither it goes, but be able to predict its movements for the benefit of humanity. Already we have attained a useful though limited power of pre- diction. Our central bureau daily collects observations by telegraph from 150 SCLENCE: all parts of this continent, and our experts are thus enabled to fore- cast the probabilities by a few hours. Day by day the results are communicated to the public by telegraph in time to avert disaster to the mariners on our eastern coast, and facilitate agricultural op- erations in the Eastern and Middle States. Although many of the predictions are still falsified by events, the percentage of fulfilments has become so large as to show that con- tinued research will in the future give us fresh forms of prediction, and increase the usefulness of this branch of science to mankind. In all departments of geographical knowledge, Americans are at work. They have pushed themselves into the front rank, and they demand the best efforts of their countrymen to encourage and sup- port. When we embark on the great ocean of discovery, the horizon of the unknown advances with us, and surrounds us wherever we go. The more we know, the greater we find is our ignorance. Because we know so little, we have formed this society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge. Because our subject is so large, we have organized the society into four broad sections, relating to the geography of the land (H. G. Ogden, vice-president), the sea (J. R. Bartlett, vice-president), the air (A. W. Greely, vice- president), the geographical distribution of life (C. H. Merriam, vice-president); to which we have added a fifth, relating to the ab- stract science of geographic art, including the art of map-making, etc. (A. H. Thompson, vice-president). Our recording and corre- sponding secretaries are Henry Gannett and George Kennan. We have been fortunate indeed to secure as vice-presidents and secretaries men learned in each department, and who have been personally identified with the work of research. WATER-SPOUTS OFF THE ATLANTIC COAST OF THE UNITED STATES. THE Hydrographic Office has published a very interesting sup- plement to the Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean, showing the positions of water-spouts sighted by masters of vessels during January and February in the western portion of the North Atlantic. The map, which is reproduced here, is accompanied by remarks of Everett Hayden, of which we give the following abstract : — “ Although the reports now at hand for these two months were received from incoming vessels only, yet they are very characteristic, and indicate fairly well the regions where these phenomena are of most frequent occurrence. “ Before quoting the reports themselves, it may be well briefly to refer to what is known regarding the character and formation of water-spouts, which are simply special cases of whirlwinds and tor- nadoes, as these are special cases of cyclones, but on a much smaller scale. “When a whirlwind is formed over the ocean, water is often drawn up the centre of the whirl some distance, owing to the suc- tion created, and at the same time the moisture in the air is con- densed as it rises, so that the name ‘ water-spout’ is very applica- ble. Indeed, sometimes a spout will burst over a vessel, and flood her decks with water, as a cloud-burst does a mountain-side. When a spout is forming, its upper portion is often visible first, seeming to grow downwards from the clouds. By observing care- fully with a telescope, however, it will be seen that the motion in the column itself is upwards, although the moisture in the air which is rising is condensed lower and lower down, thus rendering the whirl visible lower down continually, and making it appear to be actually descending. “On Jan. 12, Captain Hess, American steamship ‘ Philadelphia,’ saw four water-spouts in latitude 36° 41’ north, longitude 72° 27’ west. On the 19th, Captain Lawson, British steamship ‘ Lizzie English,’ reports several a little farther to the eastward (latitude 36° 41’ north, longitude 71° 40’ west); and from the Dutch steamship ‘Edam,’ Captain van der Zee, a detailed report has been received from third officer De Boerk of a large spout sighted at 7 A.M., Jan. 21, latitude 41° 50’ north, longitude 60° 25’ west. In the last case the spout is described as being small and straight at the base, in- creasing in size towards the top, where it mingled with the clouds. Ascending currents could be plainly seen; there was a strong west- erly gale at the time, with occasional hail and snow; temperature [Vor 1: “No: 266 of the air 0° C.; water, 11°; direction of rotation of the whirl, with the hands of a watch. “ Another very complete report has been received from Captain Dexter, American steamship ‘ City of Para,’ who saw several large spouts, Jan. 22, in latitude 31° 47’ north, longitude 74° 33’ west. The wind was strorig from the north-east, and the sky, overcast, with light scud, but the sea was comparatively smooth. Three huge spouts were seen at once, and six in the course of half an hour. The water seemed to be drawn up from the sea, mounting in spiral columns of tremendous thickness, with a loud, roaring sound. Some of the columns were vertical, some inclined at a con- siderable angle; all of them increased in size at the top, and blended with the clouds. A fine rain or mist filled the air, and continued for some time. The wind soon after changed to east. ‘Perhaps the most interesting cases of all, however, are those which were reported Jan. 26, 27, and 28, for the reason that they were clearly associated with a low-barometer area of considerable energy, which moved across the Great Lakes on the 25th, and was central off Nantucket on the 26th. It has been clearly shown by the United States Signal Service, that, when tornadoes occur on land, they take place almost invariably in the southern quadrants of an area of low barometer. It might therefore be expected that whirlwinds and water-spouts would sometimes be found associated in a similar way with a cyclonic storm at sea. The following re- ports seem to leave no doubt that such is the case. The area of low barometer, which was central over the Great Lakes Jan. 25, barometer 29.7, gathered increased energy when it reached the At- lantic, and off Nantucket the following day the barometer read 29.2; and in the Gulf of Newfoundland, on the 27th and 28th, it read as low as 28.6. The cold, dry, north-westerly winds in the western quadrants of this cyclone, and the warm, moist air flowing into the eastern quadrants, mingled to the southward of the storm- centre, and gave rise to the conditions most favorable to the devel- opment of tornadoes on land and water-spouts at sea. Accordingly, Captain Haskell, British bark ‘ Shetland,’ reports that on the 26th, in latitude 39° 34’ north, longitude 71° 16’ west (a little to the southward of the storm-centre), he saw a large spout; the follow- ing day (latitude 39° 12’ north, longitude 70° 44’ west} he saw several more; and on the 28th, still more. Captain Garvin, British steamship ‘ Orinoco,’ reports that on the 27th, when entering the Gulf Stream from the north, in about latitude 37° 20’ north, longi- tude 70° 40’ west, the sea was covered with thick vapor from five to fifteen feet high. The heavy, low-lying clouds seemed to draw the vapor up, and many water-spouts were formed, both large and small; temperature of the water, 60° F.; air, 40°. Captain Cleary, British steamship ‘ River Avon,’ states that on the 28th, in latitude 39° 30 north, longitude 57° 20’ west, he saw what he took to be a heavy squall to the south-east. Upon looking at it with his glass, he saw that it was a whirlwind, raising the water to a great height. It must have been over a mile in diameter, but he hesitates to even estimate the height to which the water was raised, or the size of the spout, although it must have had terrific power. Shortly after- wards a smaller one passed close to the ship, whirling along the water, and raising the spray to a height of fully a hundred feet. Even as far south as Bermuda the conditions were the same, for on the 27th a whirlwind swept across the parishes of Southampton and Warwick, unroofing houses, blowing down trees, and damaging property generally. “ Similarly, two cyclonic storms, which seem to have originated about the Bermudas on the roth and 12th of February, as indicated in the weather review published on the March Pilot Chart, were attended by water-spouts, at least one of which was disastrous to shipping. Feb. 10, at 9 A.M. Captain Smith, British steamship ‘Ethelbald,’ in latitude 28° 18’ north, longitude 74° 06’ west, reports a large spout travelling in a north-easterly direction, rotating, ap- parently, with the hands of a watch. The barometer was rising; fresh, variable winds, mostly southerly, and sky overcast, with very heavy rain. At this time the American bark ‘Reindeer,’ Captain Strandt, was about two hundred miles to the westward of the ‘Ethelbald,’ running up the coast towards New York, in the Gulf Stream. On the tith the weather became squally, with light southerly winds; and at 10.30 A.M., in latitude 32° 04’ north, longi- tude 76° 06’ west, when the vessel was under full sail, a heavy Marcu 30, 1888. | water-spout passed over her, completely dismasting her below the heads of the three lower masts. No previous warning was received ; the weather was apparently clear at the time; and the whole affair was over in afew minutes. The dismasted vessel reached Bermu- da on the 16th. Again, when the second of these two cyclonic storms was central about latitude 39° north, longitude 67° west, Captain Hogan, British schooner ‘ Alma,’ passed within two miles ‘of a large spout which was travelling from west to east. This was SCHEIN GE: 156 very unsettled weather; wind mostly from the south-westward, but often falling calm and flying to the opposite point of the com- pass, where it soon died out ; thunder and very vivid lightning alli around the horizon, but most marked to the north-west and north- east. On the 13th (34° north, 75° west), calm and light variable: airs, followed by a breeze from north-north-east, which by mid- night increased to a whole gale. Similarly, Captain Paine, Ameri- can barkentine ‘Henry Warner,’ reports that during Jan. 21, 22, 70° 80° 60° 50° 40° | WATERSPOUTS | In the Western Portion of the North Atlantic during ie Januzry and February, 1888, with Tracks of | Storms Coincident with Some of Them.. | ——o—— Storm track. The date marks the position of the center at 7 A.M., 75th meridian. time. h LL. Waterspout. 507) January’ 12.—American-steamship Philadelphia. I! H « 19.—British steamship Lizzie English. “«-21.—Dutch steamship Edam. 22.—American steamship City of. Para. ac 26.— i Q7.— British bark Shetland. 1 98. — «< 27.—British steamship Orinoco. « 28.—British steamship River Avon. Febru’y 10.—British steamship Ethelbald. “« 11.—American bark Reindeer. 14.—British schooner Alma. 418.—American schooner Ethel A. Merritt. « 29.—Dutch steamship Amsterdam. ~._ BOsTona’ 30h at 2 P.M., Feb. 14, latitude 30° 4o’ north, longitude 73° 50’ west, and it was blowing a gale from north-north-west at the time. The meteorological conditions prevalent about this time between the Bermudas and the Atlantic coast of the United States are well illustrated by a report made by Mr. Lund, British steamship ‘Rothiemay,’ Captain Olsen. This vessel arrived at Philadelphia Feb. 20, from Montevideo. From Feb. 1 (latitude 19° north, longi- tude 58° west) to 9 (27° north, 73° west), fine, pleasant weather, with occasional showers; light to fresh breezes from south-east- ward. From the gth to the 14th (34° north, 74° west), rainy and 4 Jan. ey Ta ; | C.Hatte =) Feb. 0 ff x | n Feb.ol3 F | \ } * ,. Bermndas : cored cranes aes \H Hl “t | F Feb..14 Seas 8 SS 5 8 BS ns Se ce ee a I Feb. (Zo 50| oth Tame2zs and 23, off the coast of New Jersey, he encountered light airs going around the compass two or three times every twenty-four hours, exhibiting this same tendency towards the formation of incipient whirlwinds and water-spouts, indicative oftentimes of the gradual generation of a great cyclonic storm. “A still later report, and one of the best and most detailed which has recently been received, relates to a spout sighted by Cap- tain Battle, American schooner ‘Ethel A. Merritt.’ This was on Feb. 18, latitude 24° 02’ north, longitude 81° 14’ west, in the Gulf Stream, off Key West, about midway between the Florida Keys 152 and the coast of Cuba,—only a week after the ‘Reindeer’ had been dismasted about five hundred miles to the north-eastward. There was a light breeze from the north-east at the time, and the sky was about half covered with nimbus clouds, moving slowly. Just after a light squall had passed by, the first appearance of a water-spout was indicated by the formation of a whirlwind, grad- ually increasing in size. It was cylindrical in shape below, spread- ing out above, and rotating in a direction with the hands of a watch. When within about a hundred yards of the vessel, its angular alti- tude was about 35°, which would indicate a height of only two ‘hundred and fifty feet or less. It was moving to the south-west at ithe rate of about eight miles an hour. At the base it was trans- parent; and descending currents seemed to be plainly visible, ‘causing the water at the surface to fly in all directions. A heavy ‘shower of rain accompanied the spout, and the phenomena lasted, im_all, about ten minutes. : “ Although the study of such reports has already greatly increased ‘our knowledge of the origin and nature of these interesting and often destructive phenomena, much yet remains to be done before we can hope to be able fully to understand the laws by which they are governed. That portion of the North Atlantic from the north- ern coast of Cuba to the goth parallel, and from the Atlantic coast of the United States to the Bermudas, is pre-eminently a region where water-spouts are liable to occur, owing largely to the warm, moist air which hangs over the Gulf Stream, and the cool, dry air brought over it by the north-westerly winds from off the coast. “Among desirable observations to be made, referring to water- spouts, special attention is called to the temperature of the air and water, the reading of the barometer, direction and force of the wind, and the changes which take place in each while the spout lasts; also the direction of rotation of the whirl, and an estimate of its size, character, and changes of form, with, if possible, sketches, however rough, of its appearance at the various stages of its forma- tion and progress.” SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON. ‘The Flow of Solids: Solids are not liquefied by Pressure. — The Law of Probabilities: a Discussion of the Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity. — Dynamite Shells: the Progress made by the Ord- nance Department of the Army with Experiments with Nitro-Glycer- ine. The Flow of Solids. Mr. WILLIAM HALLOCK of the United States Geological Survey, ‘whose paper upon a new method of making alloys was presented to the Philosophical Society a few weeks ago, read another address upon a somewhat related subject at the meeting of the same body March 17. The question whether solids, he said in substance, possessed any of the properties of liquids, or what conditions will impart such properties to them, is one of ever-increasing impor- tance, to the student alike of molecular physics in general, or of the earth’s crust in particular. The temperature rises as we penetrate the earth: hence, if no ‘other influence affect the substances, the earth has a liquid centre with a thin solid crust. Astronomical and mechanical facts seem ‘to demand a considerable rigidity. Thomson has even demanded a rigidity equal to that of glass or steel. Geological phenomena require a considerable liquid-like motion. With rising tempera- ture, as we penetrate the earth’s crust, we also have rising pressure, which probably increases the rigidity of the materials. Cannot we satisfy the demands of both geology and astronomy, and also of mechanics ? In the glaciers we have the grandest examples of the flow of solids. Henri Tresca proved that lead and some other substances would flow, and follow the laws of flowing liquids. W. Spring has ‘extended the list. Monsson actually liquefied ice by pressure. These observations have led many to advocate the idea of a lique- faction by pressure. Others having in view the results of Bunsen, Hopkins, Amazat, and others, maintain that the melting-point is raised by pressure. Solids can be made to flow: hence that property cannot be used to distinguish solids from liquids. The essential difference between a solid and a liquid is that the relative ease of re-arrangement of SCIENCE: [Vot. XI. No. 269 the molecules in liquids is very easy, in solids very difficult. Ri- gidity may be briefly defined as the difficulty of re-arranging the molecules of the body in question. Can rigidity be reduced by pressure? A frzorz, it seems scarcely likely that forcing the mole- cules nearer together can give them greater freedom of motion. Generally rigidity is inversely as the intermolecular distances. Ice is abnormal, and cannot be taken as evidence gro or con. Lead, copper, iron, steel, are all hardened by compression. All metals are harder, more rigid, in the drawn, rolled, or hammered state than cast or annealed. The rigidity of a steel pin was raised from 95,000 to 110,000 pounds per square inch by pressure. Two experiments were described bearing directly upon the question, and are convincing, although they gave unwelcome re- sults to those who made them. The first was conducted under the direction of the Ordnance Department, and is given in full in the report on ‘ Tests of Metals, etc., for 1884,’ pp. 252-285. A mixture of four parts wax and one part tallow was used as a ‘straining liquid’ in ‘tangential’ test. It was demonstrated that that mixture would not transmit pressure through a hole 8, of an inch in diameter and 24 inches long, when the pressure at one end was 100,000 pounds per square inch, and at the other 30,000 pounds per square inch, or less; whereas 2,000 pounds was sufficient to overcome all friction, and force it through, when there was no back pressure: that is, the wax and tallow were rigid enough, under pressure, to maintain a difference of 70,000 pounds per square inch (100,000— 30,000) at the two ends of that hole. The second experiment was also made with the testing-machine of the Ordnance Department at Watertown, Mass. (see American Journal of Sczence, iii. 34, 1887, p. 280). In that experiment silver coins on top of paraffine and beeswax in the holder, instead of sink- ing through a liquid under 6,000 atmospheres, were pressed so hard against the top of the holder that their impression in the steel was easily seen and felt. The paraffine and wax were rigid enough to impress silver into steel. Such facts lead us to believe that pressure increases rigidity ; and, when we remember that the pressure at the centre of the earth is millions of atmospheres, a demand for the rigidity of steel seems trifling. What is the rigidity of steel? Simply a rigidity capable of resisting 30,000 to 100,000 pounds per square inch. But distinguished geologists have made the fatal mistake of using ‘the rigidity of steel’ and ‘absolute rigidity ’ as synonymous and equiv- alent terms. Nothing is more misleading. Upheavals and depressions, and other geological phenomena, are most beautiful examples of viscous flow of solids. The forces causing a glacier to flow are trifling as compared with those gen- erated in the earth’s crust by shrinking ; and undoubtedly to cause any body to flow, we only need sufficient force and time. Can pressure impart to solids the ability to change crystallo- graphically, mineralogically, chemically ? Prismatic sulphur naturally changes to octahedral, and in many other cases changes take place under ordinary conditions of pressure and temperature. We should scarcely expect pressure pure and simple to cause a re-orientation of the axes of the two crystal fragments, even if it could perfectly weld them together. Nor should we expect pressure, without heat, to impart the ability to complete the fusion of a lump of barium sulphate in sodium carbonate, even after the process had been well started by heat. Under the extremely complex conditions, it is dif- ficult to generalize. A welding-together is not only theoretically but practically possible between two chemically clean surfaces that fit, but any operation which requires an increase of freedom in the molecules would scarcely be assisted by pressure. Cohesion and adhesion I believe to be identical, and molecular rather than molar. The bearing of these ideas, if good, upon geological phenomena, is somewhat thus: by the action of pressure and time we might find a sandstone, or such material, compacted, and rendered co- herent or even continuous, the most plastic constituents yielding most, and the most viscous retaining their shape most perfectly. Some constituents might even appear to have been fused and filled in between the rest. Certain crystallographic changes might take place, but more than the slightest chemical effect of the constitu- ents upon each other is not to be expected. The case becomes infinitely complex, and a subject for conjecture only, if the tem- perature is high. An indisputable fact in this connection is that Marcu 30, 1888.]| many more experiments are needed, and that they should be of ‘such a character that each effect can be ascribed to its proper cause, and that causes and effects shall not be treated collectively, as at present. On Probabilities. A year ago, or more, Mr. M. H. Doolittle presented a paper to the Mathematical Section of the Philosophical Society, on the doc- trine of probabilities. It gave rise to an interesting discussion at the time, which led him, at the last meeting of the section, to return to the consideration of the subject. Referring to an important ‘change of opinion by John Stuart Mill, as shown in the eighth edition of his ‘System of Logic,’ and set forth in the introductory paragraphs of the chapter on ‘The Calculation of Chances,’ Mr. Doolittle showed that the two antagonistic schools started with two different definitions of the doctrine of chances, — one, to which he belongs, accepting the latest definition by Mill, which he adopts from Laplace; and the other, that given by Mill in the first edition of his ‘ Logic.’ “ Probability,” says Laplace, “ has reference partly to our igno- rance, partly to our knowledge. We know that among three or more events, one, and only one, must happen; but there is nothing leading us to believe that any one of them will happen rather than the other. In this state of indecision it is impossible for us to pro- nounce with certainty on their occurrence. It is, however, probable that any one of these events, selected at pleasure, will not take place; because we perceive several cases, all equally possible, which exclude its occurrence, and only one which favors it.” “To a calculation of chances, then,’ says Mill, “according to Laplace, two things are necessary : we know that of several events some one will certainly happen, and no more than one; and we must not know, or have any reason to expect, that it will be one of these events rather than another.” Mr. Mill then expounds the doctrine formerly held by himself, to the effect that these are not the only requisites, and that Laplace has overlooked, in the general theoretical statement, a necessary part of foundation of the doctrine of chances, — the knowledge that one or the other of the events must happen, but the possession of no grounds for conjecturing which. ‘‘We must remember,” explains Mill, “that the prob- ability of an event is not a quality of the event itself, but a mere name for the degree of ground which we or some one else have for expecting it.” Having read these passages, Mr. Doolittle took up briefly the dis- cussion of the doctrine of philosophical necessity, and referred to Edwards on ‘ The Freedom of the Will’ as exceedingly able in the presentation of this doctrine, and one of the first, if not the very first, American book that became famous throughout the world. On the other side, he quoted from Adam Clarke’s ‘Commentary on the Bible’ as one of the ablest opponents of philosophical neces- sity. Dr. Clarke’s argument is, that, since there are events in the future which are uncertain, it is impossible for them to be known as certain, so that divine foreknowledge is only a knowledge of probabilities, and does not include the certain knowledge of uncer- tain things. Mr. Doolittle then asked his audience whether, what- ever they might think of Adam Clarke’s Deity, any one would claim to be a Deity of that sort himself, and argued, that, in any case, it is proper for us to base our theory of probability on human intel- lectual conditions, and not on divine intellectual conditions. He then said that the doctrine of probability is not peculiar in this re- spect. Metaphysicians say that all our knowledge is based upon our states of consciousness. We know only our states of con- sciousness, and although we cannot say that any probabilities exist in the nature of things, still we may presume that probabilities hav- ing a scientific basis, have in some manner their counterparts in the external world, just as we presume that other states of conscious- ness have their counterparts in the external world. With regard to such probabilities, Mr. Doolittle said Mill was tight in his first edition. But there still are probabilities of less scientific character that may nevertheless be made the subject of mathematical computation. This paper was discussed for an hour by leading members of the section. Professor Harkness of the Naval Observatory accepted the definition of probabilities given by Mill in his first edition, as did also several other gentlemen connected with that institution. The SCIEN GE: 153 gentlemen connected with the Coast Survey, on the other hand, generally accepted Mill’s latest definition adopted from Laplace. Dynamite Guns. Among the appendixes to the ‘Annual Report of the Chief of Ordnance,’ soon to be published, is one prepared by Maj. George W. McKee, on ‘ The Present Status of Dynamite as an Explosive for Shells.’ Prefacing it with a brief history of the discovery and use of nitro-glycerine, he says, — “ The Nobel’s explosive gelatine, or blasting dynamite, has been used in this country by United States officers to the entire dem- onstration of the fact that this high explosive, contained in a shell as a bursting charge, might be fired from a gun. The ordinary blasting dynamite made by the company (some of it experimentally modified with about 3 per cent of camphor) was used, and enough shells were thrown from the bores of the old mutilated guns used in the experiment to demonstrate the fact that dynamite could be projected in shells from an 8-inch rifle gun with a 4o-pound charge of powder. The great chemist Nobel never, perhaps, thought of applying his invention to this delicate test; but his powerful and wonderful gelatine, made only to be detonated in mines and the like, stood in several instances the tremendous initial shock of the gunpowder, and, by the aid of the rectangular diaphragms devised by Captain Whipple of the Ordnance Department, stood, what is thought to be equally dangerous, the heat developed by the angular velocity. If the gelatine had been especially undertaken by these chemists for a military and not, an industrial agent, and enough time and means had been at hand to perfect the diaphragm, it is believed all of the shells would then have become, as they will be in future, high-explosive batteries, projected with as much safety as though they had been charged with black gunpowder.” Major McKee, in reviewing various experiments that have been conducted under the direction of the Ordnance Department, speaks of them as follows. Of the method exhibited by Mr. Snyder, he says, “He did fairly well with some of his firing at the Hook and on the Potomac, near Washington, D.C., and, as he is a man of inventive talent and an American, no one wishes him more suc- cess in his future experiments with dynamite than the men who were delegated by the government to supervise and report upon those he originally undertook.” In the experiments with shells loaded with dynamite, conducted by Brevet Brig.-Gen. John C. Kelton, at Point Lobos, near San Francisco, Cal., in March, 1885, no specially camphorated or otherwise prepared explosive was used, but the shells were charged with the crude, blasting, industrial dynamite. Three rounds were fired from a 3-inch wrought-iron rifled gun, — shells with two hundred grams of dynamite, and a variable charge of projection. The target was a large rock at 157 yards distance. In the first two rounds the shell burst into innum- erable pieces on striking the rock, but in the third it burst within the piece. Colonel Kelton considered this experiment as very satis- factory, since it demonstrated the possibility of employing dynamite in shells, as well as the great strength of this great explosive; and he estimates that for the effective use of these artifices, which, ac- cording to him, is to destroy ships, one-half the length of the pro- jectile is the penetration needed, requiring 0.001 of a second, and he expects it will be successful. After describing some experiments at Sandy Hook in 1883, Major McKee sums up the results as follows : — “As detailed in the records, three shells were fired with fulmi- nate-of-mercury fuzes. The fulminate was too sensitive to stand the shock, and it was found afterwards that the gelatine needed no detonator. “Although the tests made were very few, it would nevertheless appear from them — “«(1) That the shells explode after clearing the muzzle, and there- fore the detonation of the gelatine is due to some cause other than the shock of discharge, very possibly the heat generated by angular velocity. “(2) This is corroborated by the fact that one shell passed through a 2-inch board target without explosion. “(3) The gelatine used in these tests, not being camphorated, renders it highly probable that a certain percentage of camphor 154 added would establish a compound which could be fired success- fully in a specially constructed shell. , “(4) The gelatine does not require a fuze or detonator of any kind. ““(5) It is believed the shell which destroyed the 3.2-inch breech- loading gun broke from the shock of discharge, or admission of powder-gas, and thus detonated the gelatine.” In the summer of 1884 the Ordnance Board fired four cast-iron screw shells from an 8-inch muzzle-loading rifle, using forty pounds of powder in the gun, and from five to eight pounds of gelatine in the shells, at each discharge. The gun was mounted on a cradle, and directed at a target 383 feet distant. One of the shells burst at or near the muzzle with little comparative violence. The other three reached the target, penetrated about seven inches, and deto- nated from the shock. These trials led to the making of six steel shells, three of them being cast, and three forged. Analysis of the facts connected with these experiments shows — “(1) That the 3-inch shells designed for gunpowder charge, when loaded with Hill’s explosive gelatine, three months old, all cleared the gun without injuring it in the slightest. ““(2) That the shells, having to be charged through the fuze- holes with the dynamite, were necessarily packed loosely, thus subjecting the charge to the powerful action of angular velocity. “(3) That in the trials made with the 3.2-inch gun, two Butler shells, charged with black gunpowder, broke up ‘at or near the muzzle ;’ while of the two Butler shells charged with Nobel’s gela- tine, or dynamite, one broke up ‘ator near the muzzle,’ and the other reached the target and exploded on impact. “(4) That in the trials made with the same 3.2-inch gun, using thin Hotchkiss shrapnel cases, charged with Nobel’s dynamite or gelatine, all cleared the gun in safety (one reaching the target after passing through two-inch boards) with the exception of one, which the board reported on as follows: ‘It either broke from the shock of discharge or admitted powder-gas.’ “(5) That a// the trials with the 8-inch shells charged with fresh Nobel’s dynamite or gelatine were successful, three of the shells detonating at the target, and one only exploding at or near the muzzle; that the gelatine used when the premature explosion took place was sixteen months on hand in this country after crossing the ocean, and therefore not such as was recommended by General Ab- bot, or contemplated by the board.” Major McKee’s conclusions are as follows: that the United States officers undertaking the investigation of this subject were ne- cessarily compelled to institute their inquiries de xovo. All foreign information was so meagre, so unsatisfactory, and so shrouded in mystery, in accordance, doubtless, with the policy of the European governments, that it was seen, after careful investigation, that all trustworthy knowledge would have to be gleaned by Americans through experience. In obtaining this experience, devices have been experimented with, invented by Mr. Snyder, who presented several plans; Mr. C. P. Winslow, with a nitro-glycerine shell, in which the glycerine and combined nitric and sulphuric acids are placed in separate glass vessels within the shells; Mr. Garrick, with a mortar and projectile for nitro-glycerine; Mr. D. P. Hill, with an 8-inch explosive gelatine shell; Mr. Stevens, with a double shell for high explosives; Mr. Graydon, with a shell containing the dynamite in capsules; Mr. Taylor, who brought his own gun, and attempted to use dynamite as a propulsive charge; and Mr. Smolianoff, experiments with whose gun were made as late as last October. In all these trials, Major McKee said, as to the practicability of using dynamite as a shell-explosive, that it was well understood by the officers undertaking them that the crude blasting compound of industry, which was the only available explosive attainable, was not the eventual product of chemistry which would satisfactorily answer this purpose. It was known that great improvements had been made in the dynamites of all kinds, especially in blasting dynamite, or gelatine of Nobel, and that these compounds presented in trans- portation by all modern conveyances, and in all mining and other industrial works, as much, if not greater, safety than the black war, sporting, and blasting gunpowders of commerce. With this status of dynamite apparent, it was seen that the time had arrived for military men in the United States to begin experiments with it as a shell-explosive, with some possibility of success. When it was SCHENCE: [Vot. XI. No. 269 demonstrated that the freshiy prepared crude commercial dynamite might be fired in a shell from an 8-inch gun with a charge of forty pounds of black gunpowder, the only question that then remained was as to the stability and reliability of the compound through age. And when, after sixteen months’ storage, it appeared to be more sensitive to shock, the Ordnance Board recommended that no more experiments be made with it until it was further camphorated, or otherwise treated by competent chemists. And it was ascertained further, in these few and inexpensive tests, that the heat developed by the angular velocity was a more potent factor in detonating the dynamite than was the shock of discharge. It has been seen, also, that, since the comparatively recent discovery of nitro-glycerine, its development has been rapid in the protean forms of dynamite. In Europe experiments are being constantly conducted to perfect this agent, and doubtless they will succeed. Even now they claim in France and Germany to have perfected melinite and helphonite, — compounds probably of nitro-glycerine and some of the ethers. In Russia they also announce some new improvements that are not known here. But in the near future there is every probability that the problem will be solved in this country. ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. Electrical Testing-Laboratories in Paris and Vienna. THE Société Internationale des Electriciens has completed and opened a laboratory whose main purpose will, for the present, be the testing and calibrating of electrical apparatus. M. de Nevyville will be the director. The following measurements will be made: resistance, capacity, electro-motive force, constants of batteries, of cables and wires, insulation resistance, efficiency of dynamos (pro- visionally of continuous-current machines), and co-efficients of in- duction. When the means allow, purely scientific researches will be carried on. The laboratory is built on a modest scale, and seems to lack a few pieces of apparatus that will probably be sup- plied : for example, there is no provision for measuring mechanical work, —a measurement necessary in many cases for the tests of dynamos and motors. The laboratory in Vienna is an addition to the Technological Museum in that city. Herr Carl Schlenk will superintend the work, which will include very much the same kind of tests as are to be made in the Paris laboratory. The establishment of these two laboratories is important. The applications of electricity have rapidly advanced, and have assumed a permanent character. The questions in many cases are not, ‘Can electricity do this?’ but, ‘How cheaply can it be done?’ and this last question can only be answered by measurements. As compe- tition increases, and as that part of the public looking for invest- ment becomes less satisfied with the mere running of a machine, and demands accurate measurement of its performance, the neces- sity of some reliable means of comparing measuring-instruments becomes necessary. In England the Central Institution of London has undertaken the work ; in Austria, the Technological Museum at Vienna; in France, the International Society of Electricians. Our country has outstripped all others in the applications of electricity. Probably we will soon have some means of comparing electrical apparatus, and testing the value of the numerous appliances daily patented. Electrical progress has been retarded and discredited by worthless patents in which a great deal of money has ‘been in- vested and lost, while a simple test, taking little time and made at little expense, would have shown them valueless. DUJARDIN’S METHOD OF FORMING SECONDARY-BATTERY PLATES. — Several methods have been tried, and some are now commercially used, of obtaining a quick formation of ‘active ma- terial’ — peroxide of lead and spongy lead — for secondary-battery plates. The Planté process of reversing the current is employed by some makers, while others deposit the peroxide and lead on support plates from an alkaline solution of litharge, as in the Mou- tard batteries. Dujardin’s process of obtaining a deposit is as fol- lows: the lead plates are put into a solution of sulphuric acid and sodium nitrate in water (10 of water, 2 of sulphuric acid, 1 of sodi- um or potassium nitrate), and a current is sent through the cell. By the passage of the current, nitrate of lead is formed, the lead Marcu 30, 1888. | being dissolved from the positive plate; and this is changed into sulphate of lead, and afterwards by the current ino peroxide of lead. Ina few hours the plate is covered with a layer of crystal- line peroxide of lead. During the formation, air is forced through the cell, or the plates are lifted from the liquid at intervals. In the absence of data as to the performance of plates formed in this way, it is impossible to compare them with the ordinary ‘grid’ plates, pasted with red lead by the Faure process. The disadvantages of this last form have been pointed out in a previous number. The type of cell under which that of M. Dujardin comes — the ‘ Planté ’ form — generally offers the advantage of quicker discharge rate, and freedom from ‘ buckling,’ as against the greater storage-capa- city of the Faure type. How far M. Dujardin has remedied the difficulties of the type outside of the time necessary for formation, remains to be seen. DISCUSSION OF ALTERNATING-CURRENT TRANSFORMERS. — The papers of Messrs. Kapp and Mackenzie before the English Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians have excited a great deal of interest and discussion on the subject of alternating currents. A number of people, many of them directly interested in electric lighting, have spoken on the matter. The majority of the speakers seemed in favor of the system, although it was attacked by Messrs. Gordon and Crompton, who prefer using storage-bat- teries for distribution. Arguments in favor of the alternating-cur- rent system were drawn from the experience of the Westinghouse Company in the States, that would be more weighty on this side of the ocean, if they were known to have been carefully verified. Some results of tests of the efficiency of transformers were given by Pro- fessor Ayrton, — the method of testing having been borrowed from our side of the water, — and values of 96 per cent were obtained under the most favorable conditions. As has been pointed out, however, in a former number of this journal, the transformers only work at the maximum efficiency for a short time during the day, so that the average efficiency will not probably be above 8o per cent. Various speakers favored different systems of distribution, but there were very few who had no experience to give; and the dis- cussion was an interesting and instructive one. BOOK-REVIEWS. Transactions of the Assoctation of American Physicians. Sec- ond session, held at Washington, D.C., June 2 and 3, 1887. Philadelphia, Assoc. Amer. Phys. THE Transactions of the Association of American Physicians at their second annual meeting in Washington has been published. This association is without doubt the most representative body of the medical profession of the United States, having on its roll of membership the most prominent physicians of the country. The papers which are contained in this volume are of a very high order, and the discussions are exceedingly pointed and valuable. The treatment of consumption by Bergeon’s method, that is, by gaseous enemata, was the subject of three of the seventeen papers, the authors being Edward T. Bruen, M.D.; F. C. Shattuck, M.D., and Henry Jackson, M.D.; and William Pepper, M.D., LL.D., and J. P. C. Griffith, M.D. Dr. Bruen sums up his views in these words: “I incline to think that suitable climatic environment is an all-important adjunct to the proper settlement of the value of Bergeon’s treatment. But it is certainly an important addition to our therapeutic equipment to have an agent capable of influencing very markedly bronchial catarrh in so many cases, especially the ‘stay-at-homes.’ In a word, Bergeon’s method, so far as I have used it, is chiefly valuable in those cases of pulmonary disease attended with bronchial catarrh. But I fear the trouble and detail necessary to its successful use will prevent many from employing the method, and I can easily see that the limitation of the power of Bergeon’s method will cause it often to be set aside for other plans of treatment.” Drs. Shattuck and Jackson say, ‘‘ This method is in no sense a specific for phthisis. 1f useful, it is only as auxiliary to older and generally accepted methods. The only benefit which we saw in our cases that can fairly be attributed to the enemata was diminu- SCIENCE 155 tion in the amount of the expectoration. The good effects which have unquestionably followed the treatment on this side of the water, as well as in France, are perhaps largely attributable to the stimulus afforded by a novel method of treatment, which is of such a nature that the patient cannot but feel that not only something, but much, is being done for him.” Drs. Pepper and Griffith conclude as follows : ‘‘ Our conclusions, so far as they can be formulated in a preliminary report of com- paratively few cases, are, that the treatment of phthisis by gaseous enemata has had very undue value attributed to it; that it is sel- dom of any real benefit, but that it may prove serviceable in occa- sional cases.” Dr. Henry Hun presented a paper on sewer-gas poisoning, with a history of twenty-nine cases. He concludes that it is prob- able that the following conditions may result from poisoning by sewer-gas: I. Vomiting and purging, either separately or com- bined; 2. A form of nephritis; 3. General debility, in some cases of which the heart is especially involved ; 4. Fever, which is fre- quently accompanied by chills; 5. Sore throat, which is frequently of a diphtheritic character; 6. Neuralgia; 7. Perhaps also myelitis of the anterior horns; 8. Zymotic diseases, such as typhoid-fever, pneumonia, diphtheria, cholera, dysentery, cerebro-spinal menin- gitis, erysipelas, and scarlet-fever (in these cases, undoubtedly, the sewer-gas merely acts as a vehicle for the specific germs); 9. A condition of asphyxia, which in its severe form is characterized by coma, convulsions, and collapse; 10. Puerperal fever ; 11. Abscesses ; 12. Lymphadenitis ; 13. Acute aural catarrh (?). The only other paper read at the meeting, which was of general interest, was one on methods of research in medical literature, by John S. Billings, M.D., U.S.A. This paper contains a good deal of excellent advice to physicians who desire to read up on any par- ticular subject for the preparation of articles for publication or presentation to medical societies. Dr. Billings thinks that one of the most useful pieces of work which could now be undertaken for the benefit of medical writers and investigators would be the prep- aration of a dictionary of critical bibliography of medical bibliog- raphy, in which should be indicated for each subject, in alphabet- ical order, a reference to where the best bibliography relating to that subject can be found. This could only be well done by a co-operation of a number of writers, each taking a special field. This useful paper of Dr. Billings closes with a list of forty of the most useful reference-books, commencing with Albertus Haller’s ‘Bibliotheca Botanica’ (1751), and ending with Richard Neale’s ‘First Appendix to the Medical Digest’ (1886). The other papers which were presented to the association were purely medical, and of little general interest. Sewage Treatment, Purification and Utilization. A Practical Manual for the Use of Corporations, Local Boards, Medical Officers of Health, Inspectors of Nuzsances, Chemists, Manu- facturers, Riparian Owners, Engineers, and Rate-Payers. By J. W. SLATER, F.E.S. New York, Van Nostrand. 8°. THIS octavo of 271 pages is one of the Specialists’ Series, of which a number of treatises have already been issued, and of which several more are now in preparation. The title of the book before us is, we think, a little misleading. The reader expects from such a comprehensive title a good deal more than he actually finds when he reads the book. Still, the subjects which the author treats are handled in a very interesting and decidedly original manner, and, when the book has been read through, the reader is surprised that so much has been put into so small a space. Its perusal impresses one with the idea that Mr. Slater is a practical man, and that he writes of that which he knows from personal experience and obser-~ vation, and not from a closet study of the books of others. In his preface he refers to the unsettled state of the sewage ques- tion. Freezing and heating, concentration and dilution, electrization and magnetizing, the addition of oxidizers and deoxidizers, of fer- ments and preventives of fermentation recommended, if not actually tried, show the want of any distinct and generally recognized prin- ciple. This is still more forcibly illustrated by the fact that since 1846 there have been no less than 454 patents issued for the chem- ical treatment of sewage. In the space at our disposal it will be impossible to follow the author in detail; but there are some points 156 which he brings out more clearly than any other writer with whose works we are familiar, and to those we desire to call attention. In speaking of the London system, he pronounces it a failure. This system he calls Bazalgettism, from the distinguished engineer who has applied it to London. _ Its essential principle is to discharge either directly into an arm of the sea, or into a tidal river, at the time of ebb-tide. Sewage matters discharged into the river at Barking and Crossness are not pushed out to sea by the combined action of the ebbing tide and current, as was expected, but mingle with the water, and work their way back to points far above the outfalls, thus effecting that pollution which the intercepting sewers and the costly channels running parallel to the river were to have averted. Mr. Slater summarizes the matter as follows : ‘‘ The Bazal- gette process, as applied to London, is a total failure. It involves the utter waste of all the manurial matters in the sewage, it aids in silting up the bed of the Thames, it occasions a nuisance much complained of by the inhabitants of the country below the outfalls on both banks, its cost is exceedingly serious, and it does not even guarantee to the inhabitants of London an unpolluted river.” It would be hard to conceive of a more vigorous and thorough con- demnation than this which Mr. Slater applies to the sewerage system of London, and he is equally emphatic in reference to the proposed extension of the system to Thames Haven at an expense of $20,- 000,000. The disposal of sewage by irrigation meets with no better treatment at his hands. He asks, “ Does irrigation effect its object without occasioning annoyance or injury to the inhabitants of the district?’ He has never failed to detect an unpleasant odor when passing near an irrigation-field in warm, still weather. At Genne- villiers, near Paris, the odor on calm, autumnal evenings may, with- out exaggeration, be described as abominable. Mr. Slater also believes that irrigation-fields may produce actual disease in their neighborhood, although he acknowledges that the evidence is some- what conflicting. Irrigation does not remove germs, and it en- courages flies, which act as carriers of these germs, it may be of cholera or typhoid-fever. On this danger from flies the author is very emphatic. He says that some of these insects that have become saturated with putrescent matter, or actual disease-germs, enter our houses and crawl over articles of food. Others settle upon our persons, and inflict malignant wounds. Fatal illness has not un- frequently been traced to the bite of flies which feed on sewage or carrion. These flies being now recognized as among the greatest agents for carrying putrid poisons and disease-germs to the healthy, it is important that all places where they can increase and multiply, and all matters upon which they may feed, should be made offen- sive to them or destroyed, as the case may admit. These opinions are sustained by the experiments of Dr. Maddox, published in the Journal of the Royal Microscopical Soctety, by which it was demonstrated that the cholera bacillus can pass in a living state through the digestive organs of flies, and also by the experiment of Dr. Grassi, who showed that when segments of the tape-worm ( Zaezza solzum) were placed in water, some of the eggs remained suspended therein, and that in the intestines and excre- ment of flies that drank of the fluid the eggs were subsequently found. Observations made by other experimenters are also con- firmatory of the fact that insects act as carriers of germs and ova of parasites. Mr. Slater believes, too, that sewage-grass is very inferior to normal herbage, and quotes experiments made by Mr. Smee, and published by him in a work entitled ‘ Milk in Health and Disease,’ by which it was proven that milk from cows fed on irrigation-grass became sour and underwent putrefaction much soon- er than that from cows fed on grass from an ordinary meadow. In concluding the discussion of irrigation, the author says that irrigation, though an excellent method of disposing of, and at the same time utilizing sewage, when suitable land is available, where the climate is warm, and the rainfall scanty or intermittent, is not applicable where these conditions are absent. Any attempt to represent it as the only means of dealing with the sewage difficulty, and to force it upon reluctant communities, is a grave error; in fact, a crime, the motives for which are in most cases hard to trace. The methods of sewage-disposal by filtration, precipitation, de- struction, distillation, and freezing, are described, and their advan- tages and disadvantages pointed out. SCIENCE: [Vou.. XI. No. 269 The author, in concluding his treatise, devotes more than sixty pages to giving an abstract of the specifications of the 454 patents for the chemical treatment of sewage, occasionally adding a note point- ing out what he considers to be their defects. Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus. JAMES BONAR. Oxford, Clarendon Pr. 8°. $2.75. . THE letters in this collection were written between 1810 and 1823, the last of the series being dated only a few days before the writer’s death. They are only in a minor degree personal, being mainly devoted to discussing the many questions in political economy on which Ricardo and Malthus disagreed. Unfortunately, the letters that Malthus wrote to Ricardo have never been found ; so that we have only one side of the discussion, which is a draw- back both to the interest and to the instructiveness of the corre- spondence. It is true that Ricardo often states his opponent's arguments; but such statements cannot supply the place of Mal- thus’ own words. However, the letters will be very interesting to students of economics, illustrating as they do the views of two of the principal founders of the science. The men were personal friends, and were often in each other's company; but on economic themes they differed widely. They agreed in the main on the sub- jects of rent and population; but they disagreed on many matters of detail and on some of prime importance. Thus, they differed widely as to the definition of value, and as to the influence of sup- ply and demand on the one hand, and of cost of production on the other, in determining value. They also differed as to the real nature of political economy; Malthus holding that it is an inquiry into the nature and causes of wealth, while Ricardo would confine it to the subject of distribution only (p. 175). The two leading faults in Ricardo’s published works appear with equal plainness in these letters. The first of these is his habit of fixing on one or two economic laws or forces, and tracing out their results without regard to the minor influences which often modify their action. He seems to have been aware himself of this ten- dency in his thinking; for he remarks in one of his letters that one of the chief causes of the differences between himself and Malthus was that he looked only to the larger and more permanent causes, while his opponent was always thinking of the minor ones. On this point, as on some others, it would have been well if the two friends had been content to learn from each other. The other de- fect in Ricardo’s theories to which we have alluded is his constant assumption that wages are always at the starvation point, so that the slightest increase in the cost of living will necessitate a rise of wages in order that the supply of labor may be kept up. Thus, he argues that a tax on breadstuffs would lead to a rise in wages, and consequent fall in profits; whereas it might only re- sult in reducing the standard of living among the laborers, so that the whole burden would fall upon them. The friendship between the two correspondents, notwithstanding their difference of opinion, was of the warmest character, as is proved by many passages in these letters, and also by a remark made by Malthus after Ricardo’s death, and quoted at the end of this volume. He said, “I never loved anybody out of my own family so much. Our interchange of opinions was so unreserved, and the object after which we were both inquiring was so entirely the truth and nothing else, that I cannot but think we sooner or later must have agreed.” We should add, that the book is well edited, and that it contains much information, both in the text and in the notes, about Ricardo and Malthus themselves, and also about other political economists who lived in their time, so that it has a biographical as well as a scientific interest. Lectures on Electréctty. By GEORGE FORBES. London and New York, Longmans, Green, & Co. $1.50. A NUMBER of popular works on electricity have been published in the last few years. Some are clearly written, some are interesting, very feware calculated to give correct ideas of the broad principles of the science of electricity. There are six lectures in Professor Forbes’s book, “intended for an intelligent audience, ignorant of electrical science, but anxious to obtain sufficient knowledge of the subject to be able to follow the progress now being made in the science.” For its purpose the book is admirable. The simpler phenomena— if we may consider any Ed. by 2c Marcu 30, 1888.] phenomenon as simple —are clearly explained, and illustrated by experiments, sometimes new, always well arranged. Lectures of this kind should have two objects, — to describe the phenomena, and state and explain the laws governing the science as fully as possible; and to give the audience an interest in the subject, and a curiosity that will lead to a further study of it. They should give an impulse toward thought, with some material for thinking on. So viewed, Professor Forbes has succeeded. The first five lectures—on potential, electric currents, mag- netism, electro-magnetism, and electro-magnetic induction — are extremely satisfactory: the last, on dynamo-electric machinery, would have been better omitted. It does not logically continue what has come before, nor is it, even considered apart from the other lectures, in any way as satisfactory as they are. Taken as a whole, however, the lectures are to be commended for the clearness of exposition, accuracy of statement, and the very interesting way in which they are written. NOTES AND NEWS. A Cyprus Exploration Fund has been formed in London, the object of which will be to carry on archeological researches sim- ilar to those of the Palestine Exploration Fund. The committee of this fund have applied to the high commissioner of Cyprus for per- mission to excavate in the island. This application was supported by a special resolution addressed to the secretary of state for the Colonies by the trustees of the British Museum. Permission has now been obtained in respect of one site, the village of Kouklia, which stands on the site of the ancient Paphos; and operations have begun there, on a large scale, which promise to yield results of exceptional interest, the special object in view being the great temple of Venus. The work is being carried out by students of the British School at Athens, under the supervision of the director, Mr. Ernest Gardner, whose services, and a contribution of £150, were placed at the disposal of the Cyprus Exploration Fund by the managing committee of the school. The same sum has been con- tributed respectively by the University of Cambridge (from the Worts Travelling Fund), the University of Oxford, and the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. Individual subscriptions amounting to upwards of £600 have been received. — George S. Mackenzie, secretary of the Emin Pacha Relief Committee, publishes the following news, which was sent by mail from Zanzibar : “It is reported in the Bazaar here that Tippo-Tip, after some delay, has sent a number of his men to Mr. Stanley’s camp on the Aruvimi.” This news, which is published with some reserve, is very gratifying, as it shows the desire of Tippo-Tip to carry out the engagements he entered into with Stanley. The ar- rival of Tippo’s party would enable Major Barttelot to despatch without delay the ammunition and reserve stores from the camp of Yambuga, at the mouth of the Aruvimi, to Wadelai. Although Stanley’s progress was evidently not as rapid as was assumed in the plan, it is not necessary to entertain serious apprehensions as to the safety of his expedition. When it was stated that news of Stanley would probably reach us early in March, it was assumed that the steamers of the Kongo Association would visit the stations at Aruvimi and Stanley Falls. The steamer ‘Stanley’ was to be despatched to these places under the command of Captain van der Velde. Unfortunately this able officer died at Leopoldville a few weeks ago, his death being announced in the latest issue of the Mouvement Géographigue. He explored the lower Obangi and its tributaries, the Itimbiri, and made an unsuccessful attempt to reach the Welle, starting near the most northern point of the great bend of the Kongo. His death has delayed the expedition to Stanley Falls, and for this reason it is assumed that the first news of Stan- ley will reach us vza Zanzibar. As, however, communication be- tween the Mvutan Nsige and the coast is very irregular, it is hard to tell when definite and reliable news will reach us. — On Feb. 17 the first memorial erected to a public man in the Brighton Museum was unveiled there in the shape of a marble medallion portrait of the late distinguished scientist, Dr. Thomas Davidson, the first chairman of the museum committee, and whose lifelong study of brachiopoda won for him a foremost name in the ranks of paleontologists. SCIPINGE: 157 ILITAP AN TING) TO) Ass, IID I|IKOINR. The Snow-Snake and the r-Sound. THE evidence on the Southern use of the snow-snake is certainly not what was expected, and, with my experience of Indian tra- ditions, is not satisfactory. Passing by this, I will mention two things noticed while on the reservation to-day. Many Seneca snow- snakes are now made there, and these differ from the Onondaga in being flat on the opposite surfaces, with the edges slightly rounded, A good crust being lacking, an enterprising Indian had made a gutter in the snow by the roadside, about fifty rods long, and was getting a little money by its use from a number of boys. I looked up the name carefully. It had been written for me, as before stated, and I had somewhat hastily asked several its name when last there, without noticing any discrepancy. Now, it ap- peared that Mr. Hewitt was partially right ; but every man, woman, and child gave it as £a-when-tah, or ka-wen-tah, changing the supposed 7 into 2 uniformly, and sometimes hardening the & into g. AsI paid special attention to the second syllable, my own or- thography stands corrected in this case, and that of Mr. Hewitt also. Ialso corrected one other word in which I made a similar error in some casual work. In testing the version of the Lord’s Prayer given me, a second time, the question is not so clear. I am not in the least troubled with oZoszs, and had used reasonable care, but without regard to the objection now made. The first three instances in which I then retained the letter may be called doubtful. I went over them again with my old friend Albert Cusick, and although the letter seemed there as the words were read, —and perhaps ordinary speech is the true test, — yet the sound almost disappeared when each sylla- ble was taken by itself. In the fourth, where a clause was para- phrased rather than translated, there is less room for uncertainty. The sound is fuller, and is not readily dispensed with. But for its rarity elsewhere, I certainly should retain it there. The last test I used was with the numerals given by Schoolcraft in his Onondaga vocabulary. He credits some words in it to the Mohawk. Ido not remember that he does these, but they are not of the Onondaga language. In the first ten Onondaga numerals, ~ does not occur. It is evident, of course, that Zeisberger incorporated many Mo- hawk words in his Onondaga lexicon, and his early study of that tongue perhaps sufficiently accounts for this; but how he could have spent the time he did at Onondaga, for the sole purpose of studying the language, and yet used this letter so much, and even in proper names, without its partial use by the central nation, is not easily understood. One of the eminent authorities cited for the early disuse of the letter seems merely to quote from another, but some historical facts may have been overlooked. The Jesuit missions at Onondaga were abandoned late in the seventeenth century, though the mis- sionaries sometimes came there very early in the eighteenth. In preparing a list of historic Onondagas, I took notice of a half-cen- tury of this ost-/Jesuzt period. From 1725 to 1775.1 found the names of fifty-seven Onondagas, and twenty-three of these con- tained the letter 7. Zeyawarunte, an Onondaga sachem, was speaker in 1775, as he had been long before. The year previous, the Onondaga sachems had a private audience with the new Indian agent, Col. Guy Johnson, and some of their distinguished men were presented to him. In the names of four out of the eight mentioned, is found the nominally obsolete letter. Here I leave the question. W. M. BEAUCHAMP. Baldwinsville, N.Y., March 8. Needed— An Improved Means of attaching Microscopical Objectives. THE recent interesting discussion in Sczence regarding the defects of existing microscopes ought to lead to practical results. While the subject is under consideration, every detail ought to be passed under review, or rather studied de novo, accepting no legacies of the past, no matter how useful they may have been in their day, provided we can find better devices. One very important thing to. be considered is the means whereby objectives are to be attached to the tube of the microscope. Obviously, what we need for this, purpose is a device so simple it can be easily manufactured and 158 used, — one that is durable, and not liable to get out of order; which will fix the objective firmly in position, and yet will permit it to be attached or removed with the least possible expenditure of time and energy. It must be admitted that the screw meets all these requirements except in the important matter of attaching and removing the objective. The screw is not an expeditious mode of attachment, although it may be improved by lessening the number of the threads so that only one or two turns of the objective tube would be needed in order to bring it to position. Most objects require to be studied under different amplifications, and the time spent in changing from one to another is a real loss. Most work- ing microscopists will begrudge every second spent in changing, not only because their time is valuable, but also because an object may thus be lost, at least for a time, especially if it is a moving object. If it is possible, objectives should be attachable and removable without having to draw back the tube of the microscope or disturb the object. This is accomplished by the revolving nose- piece, but under the disadvantage of being somewhat bulky ; also it answers for only two or three powers, and leaves the unused ob- jectives exposed to the dust. The Facility nose-piece, the Zent- mayer cut-away nose-piece, etc., show that objectives can be at- tached more quickly than by the ordinary screw; yet, like the screw, these devices require drawing back the tube in order to be attached. It will be a great gain if some way can be devised whereby each objective can be easily and instantly slid into place from the side, the new objective pushing out the one in former use as it is itself pushed in. This would probably involve a square or rectangular plate fixed to the top of the objective, sliding in ways fixed to the instrument tube, or some other equivalent arrange- ment. It is not, however, my present purpose to discuss the ways and means for gaining the important end of attaching the objec- tive by some more speedy device than the screw, only to call attention to the subject. If no device superior to the screw can be found, by all means, let the fittest survive. On the other hand, it is neither mechanical, nor in the end economical, to let the screw, because it is already in the field, stand in the way of a better device. At the present time both microscopists and manu- facturers are agreed on the society screw, and those who prefer nose-pieces have to go to the expense of providing adapters. It will be no more than fair to change the programme. Suppose we agree on some standard form and size of nose-piece, and let those who prefer screws provide the adapters. By having the nose-piece attached directly to the objective tube, we would do away with screws entirely, also all need of adapters except to tubes already provided with screws. It may be objected that there are so many possible ways of at- taching objectives, that there is no probability of coming to an ‘agreement upon a single standard size and form of attachment whereby the objectives of all makers could be used on every microscope, as they are under the present arrangement of the society screw. In reply it may be said that we cannot know this until after the attempt has been made. If American microscopists take con- certed action for making their needs known, it must result in a great many suggestions as to the proper mechanical devices for securing the desired ends. The resources of mechanicians were not exhausted when the screw was invented. I believe it is only a question of time when the ordinary screw will be replaced by some more expeditious device, perhaps by some form of sliding collar, or, if the term be preferred, by the American nose-piece. G. H. STONE. Colorado Springs, Col., March 16, Is the Rainfall increasing on the Plains ? IN your issue of March 2, I observe the statement attributed to the chief signal officer, corroborating “the prevalent opinion that the rainfall in the West is increasing,” while Mr. Henry Gannett “ dismisses this popular idea as baseless.” My own opinion is de- cidedly in favor of the affirmative of this question. My personal observations for twenty years at this point indicate the existence of a rainfall cycle of about seven years in duration, each septennial period including two or more consecutive years of precipitation above the average, and a similar series of years with precipitation SCIENCE: [Vor. XI. No. 269 below the average. A seven-year cycle is also illustrated in the Fort Leavenworth rainfall, whose records cover double the period of my own observations at Lawrence. Recognizing the existence of this cycle, it will require a minimum series of fourteen years of records to warrant a division of the period into two equal parts for the purpose of determining the question of an increase of rainfall. I would therefore eliminate from Mr. Gannett’s list all but nine of the twenty-six stations. At these stations the aggregate increase of precipitation in the second half of the periods of observation is 109 inches, which gives an average annual increase of 1.28 inches for the nine stations. This is certainly a decided increase, although the average period of observation is only nineteen years. But the length of the period of observation at Fort Leavenworth is thirty-nine (instead of twenty-eight, as given in Mr. Gannett’s table), — from 1836 to 1874. A study of this series of observation is of great interest, since it is the largest series in our possession, and especially since its division into two equal parts throws the first half entirely into the period preceding the settlement of Kansas, while the second half is placed entirely within the period of settlement of this great Commonwealth. The total precipitation in the first half of this period (ending June 30, 1855) was 592.84 inches, giving an annual average of 30.40 inches, while in the second half (ending Dec. 31, 1874) it was 696.29 inches, giving an annual average of 35.70 inches. This shows a total increase of 103.45 inches, or an average annual increase of 5.30 inches, This is assuredly a change worthy of notice, involving an increased precipitation of more than seventeen per cent. My figures concerning the Fort Leavenworth rainfall are derived from a transcript of the records furnished by Prof. Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution, and published in the ‘ Annual Re- port of the Kansas Board of Agriculture for the Year 1874.’ In this transcript there are no records for 19 of the 468 months of the 39 years. Five of these blanks occur in the first half of the period, and have been filled by inserting the average precipitation for the months in question. Twelve of the blanks occur in the second half of the period, and have been filled by inserting the actual rainfall for those months at Lawrence, Manhattan, and Fort Riley, all of which stations are within about one hundred miles of Fort Leaven- worth, and have a smaller rainfall than that of Fort Leavenworth. The following diagram is appended as exhibiting more clearly this periodicity according to my observations at Lawrence : — r a ] I 3 75 79 80 St 82 8 82 BS BG 87 ANNUAL RAINFALL AT LAWRENCE, KAN., 1868-87. A similar platting of the Fort Leavenworth rainfall exhibits six periods of excessive precipitation, separated by intervals of seven years, and alternating with periods of deficient precipitation, in the same manner as in the above diagram of the Lawrence rainfall. F. H. SNow, Lawrence, Kan., March 13. Bacteriology in our Medical Schools. IN connection with the subject of bacteriology in the schools, it should be stated that Johns Hopkins University, though it has not yet established a medical course, has organized a pathological in- stitute. In this institute the subject of bacteriology is thoroughly taught in the most approved manner by a competent board of in- structors, H. W.Conn. Middletown, Conn., March 21. -Marcx 30, 1888. | SOM NC: eee 111 SCIENCE CLUBBING RATES. a 10% DISCOUNT. 5 4 3 ws |S | 29 We will allow the above discount to] ya, | 3 2 el any subscriber to Sczence, The Swss| $8 =.8 Eas Cross, or The Puzzler, who willsend| > 2 on 3 us an order for periodicals exceeding Ej cr) $10, counting each at its full price. wn 5 American Agriculturist.....--..-.-- $ 1.50)/$ 4.30/$ 2.50 American Analyst..........-+--++-++ I.00| 4.25| 2.25 American Architect and Building News. Imperial edition.......--..--++- 10.00} 12.80] 11.00 Gelatine “ abe 7.00| g.80| 8.00 Regular “ -. 6 00; 8-80) 7.00 American Garden....--. Se nee I.00| 4.25] 2.25 American Journal of Philology. 3.00] 6.25] 4.25 American Machinist......-.- 2.50) 5-30| 4 50 American Magazine.... 3.00| 5-80] 4.00 American Naturalist... 4.00} 7-50] 5.50 Andover. Review...-- 4.00} 6.80] 5.00 Atlantic........ 4.00| 6.80] 5.00 Babyhood 1.50) 4-30] 2.50 Babyland... SO) Bogfsl) 3807/3 Bradstreet’s 5.00] 7.80| 6.00 IB Ws 5 Goo canDA00b 3.50| 6.30) 4.50 Building (weekly)...-.-- 6.00] 8.80] 7.00 Carpentry and Building. I.00| 4.25] 2.25 Century Magazine...... 4.00] €.80] 5.00 Chautauquan, The .... 1.50| 4 30] 2.50 Christian Union, The....- 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 Christian Weekly, Illustrate 2.50| 5.30] 3-50 Cosmopolitan, The......-.--.- 2.00, 4 80] 3.00 Cint56 050050 c50000 3-00) 5.80] 4.00 IDEwliieoscosccos00g poss nOdD0GO BGO 2.00) 4.80] 3.00 Eclectic Magazine......-..--++-+-+- 5.00, 7-80] 6.00 Edinburgh Review. +e-| 4.00] 6.80] 5 00 Electrical World......-.----+- flees 3.00, 5-80] 4.00 Electrician and Electrical Engineer.| 3.00) 5 80) 4.00 Electrical Review...-.--+++++-++see++ 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Engineering and Mining Journal....| 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 English Illustrated Magazine....... I.75| 4-55| 2-75 Family Story Paper (N.Y.)..-. ---- 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Forest and Stream....- goon Q0cac0 0d 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 Forum, The......-.0+.2-seeeeee sees 5.00) 7-80] 6.00 Godey’s Lady’s Book......--...+++- 2.00} 4.80] 3.00 Harper’s Bazar-....+----e22eeee sees 4.00! 6.80] 5.00 Harper's Magazine......+++++++++++ 4.00| 6.80] 5.00 Harper's Weekly....--+---+200:+00+ 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 Harper’s Young People......------. 2.00] 4.80! 3.00 Health and Home I.00| 4.25) 2.25 Herald of Health... 1.00] 4.25] 2.25 Illustrated London Teprint)...-.---2.++--+* 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 Independent, The.. 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 Inter Ocean, The.- I.00| 4.25| 2.25 Tron Age (weekly)..------+++-0+++-5 4.50| 7-30] 5-50 Journal of Philology (Eng. eseeeee 2.50} 5.30| 3-50 Journal of Speculative Philosophy (begins with Jan. No.).....----++-| 3.00] 5.80) 4.00 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 50 12.00} 14.80] 13.00 DEBE ae alelelerciete cieleleleisle eieinisiesieisesieons 5-00] 7.80} 6.00 Lippincott’s Magazine -| 3.00] 5.80) 4.00 Littell’s Living Age........-.--+-++ 8.00] 10.80} 9.00 Little Men and Women ........--- I.00| 4.25) 2.25 London Quarterly......-.- 4.00! 6.80] 5.00 Macmillan’s Magazine.... 3.00] 5.80] 4 00 Magazine of American History..... 5.00] 7.80} 6.00 Medical and Surgical Journal....... 5-00] 7.80| 6.00 Mechanical Engineer........-- +++] 2.00] 4.80] 3.00 Metal Worker....- I.00| 4.25| 2.25 Microscope, The. I.00| 4.25] 2.25 Nature 6.00] 8.80] 7.00 New Princeton Review.......-...-- 3.00] 5.80) 4.00 North American Revie 5.00] 7.80} 6.00 Outing. 3.00] 5.80! 4.00 Overland Monthly. 4.00| 6.80] 5.00 ans yarn wey) adoods I.00| 4.25] 2.25 Political Science Quarterly.. 3,00] 5.80] 4.00 Popular Science Monthly..........- 5.00] 7.80] 6.00 Popular Science News......---.++++ 1.00] 4.25] 2.25 Bortfoliosmiher ee). -i\elr=*/= 7.50| 10.30] 8.50 Practitioner...... 3-50| 6.30] 4.50 Public Opinion ... 3.00} 5.80] 4-00 IRA | AbeoooaouuRKD 0900 4.00| 6.80] 5.00 Puck (German)......-...---- 5-00] 7 80] 6.00 Quarterly Review (London).. 4.00) 6.80] 5.00 (Olt e@So5q005d000000000 Dbe I.00| 4.25| 2.25 Rural New-Yorker. 2.00| 4.80] 3.00 St. Nicholas........... 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 School Journal ......... 2.50| 5.30| 3.50 Scientific American.. 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Supplement........... «s+ ssee-| 5.00) 7.80] 6.00 Architect and Builders’ edition..| 2.50) 5.30| 3.50 Scribner’s Magazine 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Southern Cultivator........... I.50| 4.30]. 2.5¢ Springfield Republican (weekly) 1.00] 4.25] 2.25 Sunday School Times 2.00) 4.80] 3.0c Teachers’ Institute. . 1.25} 4.05| 2.25 Texas Siftings..... 4-00| 6.80] 5.0¢ Treasure-Trove.... r.00| 4.25] 2 25 Truth Seeker, The.. 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 Wide Awake 2.40} 5 20] 3.40 Young Folks I.00| 4.25) 2.25 N. D. C. HODGES, 44 Lafayette Place, New York. BOOK-NOTES. — The Philadelphia Social Science Asso- ciation will shortly publish a monograph ‘by Prof. E. J. James, of the University of Penn- sylvania, entitled ‘ Chairs of Pedagogics in our Colleges and Universities.’ — In the article entitled ‘ Where Shall We Spend Our Summer?’ which Gen. A. W. Greely, chief signal officer, will contribute to the April. Scrvzéser’s, he shows (as far as one can predict from the series of observa- tions made by the Signal Service of the Army for many years) which will be the three hot- test days of the coming summer, east of the Mississippi River. -- Messrs. Lee & Shepard, Boston, will soon publish the following books: ‘Chips froma Teacher’s Workshop; or, Educational Topics of the Day,’ by L. R. Klemm, Ph.D.; and a new edition of ‘ Pre-Glacial Man and the Aryan Race,’ which was first issued a few weeks ago, by Lorenzo Burge. —The D. Lothrop Company announces the preparation and speedy publication of a series of graphic historical narrations by popular authors, telling the story of the States of the American Union from their earliest beginnings to the present day. ‘The Story of the States’ will be issued under the editorial supervision of Elbridge S. Brooks. Each volume will be fully illustrated with designs by L. J. Bridgman. The initial vol- umes will appear in the spring of 1888. New York, Ohio, and Louisiana are now nearly ready. The volumes already arranged are, ‘The Story of California,’ by Noah Brooks ; ‘The Story of Massachusetts,’ by Edward Everett Hale; ‘The Story of Virginia,’ by Marion Harland ; ‘ The Story of Louisiana,’ by Maurice Thompson; ‘The Story of New York,’ by Elbridge S. Brooks; ‘The Story of Ohio,’ by Alexander Black; ‘The Story of Missouri, by Jessie Benton Fremont ; “The Story of Vermont,’ by John Heaton; ‘The Story of Texas,’ by E. S. Nadal; ‘ The Story of Maryland,’ by John R. Coryell; ‘ The Story of Colorado,’ by Charles M. Skinner ; “The Story of Kentucky,’ by Emma M. Con- nelly ; ‘The Story of the District of Colum- bia,’ by Edmund Alton; ‘The Story of Maine,’ by Almon Gunnison ; ‘ The Story of Pennsylvania,’ by Olive Risley Seward ; ‘ The Story of Connecticut,’ by Sidney Luska. — Mr. Kennan’s Siberian papers, illustrated by Mr. G. A. Frost, who accompanied Mr. Kennan on his trip through Asiatic Russia, will begin in the May Century. Their ap- pearance has been deferred on account of the author’s desire to group in preliminary papers — the last of which will be in the April Century — an account of the conditions and events in Russia directly related to the exile system. GERMAN SIMPLIFIED SPANISH SIMPLIFIED The following will be found eminently practical for self-instruction: (1.) German Simplified—Complete in 12 numbers (with keys) $1.20. (2.) Spanish Simplified— 12 numbers (with keys) ro cts. each; No, 7 now ready ; anewnumber on the first of every month. Sold by all booksellers. Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by Prof. A. Knoflach, 140 Nassau St., New York. Amusements of New York. YCEUM THEATRE. i DANIEL FROHMAN...........-... - Manager, Cor. 4th Avenue and 23d St. Wali. \WaUle 18, A New Play by D. Bevasco and H. C. Dr Mitte. Preceded byzterleiieatat- Editha’s Burglar. Evenings, 8:15, Saturday Matinees 2 PVIABISON-SQUARE THEATRE. MR. A. M. PALMER, Sole Manager. Evenings at 8:30. Saturday matinée at 2. THE LONDON COMEDY SUCCESS, HEART OF HEARTS. HEART OF HEARTS. By Henry Arthur Jones, author of ‘* The Silver Kiag, &e. ALLACK’S. THIRD WEEK. Under the direction of Mr. HENRY E. ABBEY MARCH 23, MON HY - MON HY - Evenings, at 8:15. Matinée Saturday at 2:15. ASINO. Broadway and 39th St. Evenings at 8. Matinee Saturday at 2. THE BRIGHTEST, MERRIEST, AND MOST EN- JOYABLE COMIC OPERA EVER PRESENTED, AS PERFORMED NEARLY 700 TIMES. ERMINIE. RECEIVED WITH ROARS OF LAUGHTER. ROADWAY THEATRE. BROADWAY, 41ST-ST., AND 7TH-AV. Manager eon -cnon ee . Mr. FRANK W. SANGER, Acknowledged by the ENTIRE PRESS THE HANDSOMEST THEATRE IN THE CITY. Practically Fire- proof, Thoroughly Comfortable, Perfectly Ventilated, Best Constructed, and SAFEST THEATRE IN THE WORLD. EVERY EVENING and SATURDAY MATINEE. FANNY DAVENPORT. IN VICTORIEN SARDOU’S MASTERPIECE, LA TOSCA. BOX OFFICE OPEN FROM o A.M. to 10 P.M. Boxes, $12, $10, $8. Orchestra stalls, $1.50. Orchestra circle, $1.50 and $1. Balcony, $1.50 and $r. Gallery, 50 and 35 cents. Admission, 50 cents. CADEMY.............. GILMORE & TOMKINS, CADEMY................ Proprietors and Managers. MARCH 21, Bandmann, “‘ Jekyll and Hyde.” 25) 50, 75C-, $1.00. DALY'S THEATRE, Broadway and 30th St. Under the management of Mr. AUGUSTIN DALY. Orchestra, $1.50. Dress Circle, $1. Second Balcony, soc. EVERY EVENING at 8:15. MATINEES begin at 2. EVERY NIGHT at 8:15, production of Shakspeare’s comedy in five acts, ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream, by AUGUSTIN DALY. MATINEES WEDNESDAYS and SATURDAYS. GTANDARD THEATRE. Broadway and 33d st. 97TH TIME. LAST WEEK. STEELE MACKAYE IN PAUL KAUVAR. *.*Thursday, March 29, 100th and souvenir night. DOCKSTADER'S THEATRE. Dockstader, Shepard & Graus, Proprietors. FOURTH WEEK. Crowded Houses. A Success. Without Doubt. CORINNE IN ARCADIA. Reserved Seats, 25, 50, 75, $1. EVENINGS, 8:15 Matinee WED. AND SAT. AT 2. *,* In preparation, MONTE CRISTO, JR. DEN MUSEE. 23d St., between sth and 6th Ave. Open from rr to rz. Sunday, 1 to zr. New Groups, New Paintings, New Attractions. ERDELYI NACZI. and his HUNGARIAN ORCHESTRA. CONCERTS FROM 3tos5 AND 8 torr. Second exhibition of Paintings now open. Admission to all, 50 cents. Children 25 cents. Ajeeb, the Mystifying Chess Automaton. SCIENCE: mi ao J aE BEE AUANE = UNEQUALLED for CEMENTING @—S wood, a china, paper, leather, &c. Always bra, ready for use. Pronounced strongest glue known. IS MADE BY THEYAWARRED, Two | ce : oer eae Mase Roe ussiaCement Co, ,sampie zvchtamps SF These glues are used in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington for all its work of mounting speci- mens—by the Government Arsenals and Depart- ment Buildings, by the Pullman Palace Car Co., Mason & Hamlin Organ and Piano Co., and by thousands of first-class manufacturers and mechan- ics throughout the world, for all kinds of fine work. Pronounced STRONGEST ADHESIVE KNOWN. Sold in tin cans for mechanics and amateurs, and in bottles for family use. The total quantity sold between Jan., 1880, and Jan., 1885, in all parts of the world amounted to over 32 MILLION BOTTLES. Be sure and get the genwine LePage’s made only by RUSSIA CEMENT CO. KIMBALL’S SATIN STRAIGHT CUT CIGARETTES. People of refined taste who desire exceptionally fine cigar- Af ettes should use only our STRAIGHT CUT, put up in satin packets and boxes of ’ TOs. 20s. 50s. and 100s. 14 FIRST PRIZE MEDALS. WM. S. KIMBALL & CO): REATAMERICAN TO L ADIES. ale Greatest mducements ever of- fered. Now’s your time to get By. Warten ape orders for our celebrated nee | eas and Coffees, and secure Gompany. See ralGatiiandior ieee Rose China Tea Set, Dinner Set, Gola 1a vd. Loss Rose Hones Set, Watch, ‘Brass L: amp, or Webster's Done For full particulars address THE GREAT AMERICAN T cO., P. O. Box 289. 81 and 83 Vesey St., New York, W. H, WALMSLEY & CO. SUCCESSORS TO R. & J. BECK, 1016 Chestnut Street, Phila. Microscopes and all Accessories and Ap- paratus. 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Complete Text-Book, — adapted to SELF-INSTRUCTION,— of a REVOLU- TIONARY SYSTEM, that discards the indefinite (vow- el) part of the common phonography, and secures, by a radical innovation, EXACTNESS with BREVITY Specially adapted to Legal and other Technical work. A phonographic author writes of it: —‘* On technical mat- ter, you are ahead of any form of Pitman’s phonog- raphy.’? The author claims equal superiority on com- mon, monosyllabic words, SHARPLY and SURELY DISTINGUISHING and WITHOUT SACRIFICE of BREVITY, where the old phonography makes no dis- tinction A MODERN WORK, ADAP LED to MOD- ERN REQUIREMENTS. Five pp. Latin Law Max- ims, in shorthand, illustrate its adaptation to various lan- guages. Of 260 pp., 222 are engraved, — illustrating all principles with unprecedented fulness. E, D. 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IPSRIRATE OF AGASSIZ.—Chapter 94 of The Agassiz Association has for sale photographs of Prof. Louis Agassiz 75 cents. Address C. B. STEBBINS, 30 Day St., Somerville, Mass. HELPS TO SELF-CULTURE. The following pamphlets are published under the aus- pices of the NaTIONAL Bureau oF Unity Cuuss, organ- ized in Boston in May, 1887, with Rev. Edward Everett Hale,D.D., as President,and with a Board of Directors of twelve men and women, residing east and west. It has at present two head centres.— at Chicago and Boston. Its object is to render assistance in the study of literary, philanthropic and religious problems. No. x. Unity Ciuss. By Emma Endicott "Marean. ro cents, No. 2. RopertT Brownine’s Poetry. the Chicago Browning Society. 25 cents. No. 3. OUTLINE STUDIES IN GEORGE ELIOT. P. Woolley. 10 cents. No. 4. THE LEGEND oF HamteT. By George P. Han- son. 25 cents. No. 5. PROGRESS FROM PovEeRTY: REVIEW AND CrIT- icisM OF Henry GeorGe. By Giles B. Stebbins. 25 cents. No. 6. 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SCOTT’S EMULSION of Pure Cod Liver Oil, with Uypophosphites, is a combination of two of the most valua- ble remedies in existence fir the cure of Consumption and all Wasting Con- ditions ; is more generally recommend- ed and used by Physicians than any known remedy ; it gives most satisfac- tory results, and tones up the system ; and when the Consumptive has wasted away and loses hope, the Emulsion will speedily check the ravages of this terrible disease, and restore the sufferer to good health and happiness. This is equally true in regard to Rickets in Children, or Marasmus and Anzmia in Adults, and all impoverished conditions of the blood ; and especially desirable for Cclds and Chronic Coughs, as it will cure them more quickly than ordi- nary Specifics used, Palatable as milk. Sold by all Druggists. SCIENGESS AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY JOURNAL. THE SCIENCE COMPANY, OWNERS AND PUBLISHERS. OFFICERS AND Drirecrors. —D. C. 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The following discounts are allowed on yearly con- tracts : — T.COOUlIneS® fa iee sy es Uriel eon toll EE BX OW PARMA: Sho O-G)n 6 5 016 OO 52 pages Advertisements must be acceptable in every respect. Copy recetued until Wednesday, 10 A.M. SCIENCE ts sent free to those who advertise in it as long as advertisement continues. SRN CEs FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1888. IF THE AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS could remain in Washing- ton for a month or two, and stir up the members of Congress about once a week by way of remembrance, we believe that the inter- national copyright bill might be passed during the present session. During the week they were there, they found friends on every side, some of them unexpected ones. The fact that all interests have been harmonized ; that even the representatives of labor, whom the politicians are more afraid of than any other class of people who go to Washington with ‘demands,’ are satisfied, — has made a very marked impression upon Congress. We hear from Washington that the bill is very likely to pass the Senate before the adjourn- ment, and to be reported favorably from the judiciary committee of the House. It is doubtful if the latter body, already pretty deep in the mazes of political legislation, and in less than two weeks to be wrestling with the tariff bill, and annual appropriations, and a hun- ‘dred and one other topics, will have any time to devote to this measure of simple justice. The principal trouble with the inter- national copyright bill is that there is no politics in it. Mr. G. E. GOODFELLOW’S REPORT upon the epicentral region of the Sonora earthquake, published elsewhere in this issue of Sczence, is the first connected or at all complete description of it that has yet been received in the United States. Some fragmentary and disconnected accounts by the Mexican scientific commissioners had been forwarded to the government through the State Depart- ment, but these were so meagre and disjointed as to be of very lit- tle value, except as supplementary to Mr. Goodfellow’s report. The latter, prepared as it was by a gentleman who makes no preten- sions to scientific expertness, is considered at the United States Geological Survey Office as a very remarkable and creditable per- formance. It is rare that a report is received at that office from any source, which gives evidence of so systematic, conscientious, and thorough investigation, of such perfect freedom from precon- ceived ideas or theories, and in which the results of an inquiry are given with so much succinctness and intelligence. Mr. Goodfellow has received many compliments at the Geological Survey Office for his excellent piece of scientific work. THE committees in charge of the memorial to Audubon have selected a design, and are now actively engaged in endeavoring to raise the necessary funds. The committee of the New York Acad- emy of Sciences are associated with committees of the Torrey Botanical Club, the Natural History Association of Staten Island, the Audubon Society, the American Ornithological Union, the Linnzan Society of New York, and the Manhattan Chapter of the Agassiz Association. They have so far received only a small amount of contributions, and are anxious to have the matter com- pleted, so as to have the unveiling of the monument take place in the early fall, if possible. The design for the monument is shown in the annexed cut. It consists of a runic cross of North River bluestone, which will be eighteen feet high above the base, mounted -on a pedestal which will be six feet in height. The cross will be -covered on both sides with designs of the birds and animals which Audubon described, the selections being made by a special com- mittee of the joint committees appointed for the purpose. The ‘base will have upon one side a bas-relief of Audubon, surrounded ‘by the Florida water-lily, which he discovered and described. On one side will be his rifle and game-bag, he being one of the most expert shots of his time. The other face will be filled by a suitable inscription to his memory. The monument is to be placed in Trin- ity Cemetery, at the foot of Audubon Avenue, and will be one of the most beautiful monuments in any cemetery in New York. The effect of the relief and carving upon the North River bluestone is G oe Ge such as to bring out the design, and at the same time give exactly the same effect as the ornamentation of the old runic crosses. The monument itself will cost ten thousand dollars. This does not in- clude the erection of the vault, and the exchange of the new plot for the old one, which has been kindly undertaken by the corpora- tion of Trinity Church. Subscriptions may be sent to Dr. Britton, Columbia College. 160 HELEN KELLER. IN Sczence of Feb. 24 we gave an account of Helen Keller, a second Laura Bridgman, who, although blind and deaf, is making This week we give her wonderful advances in her education. at ¥ cektes : Gee Jam ou Oo \ \ f buat i att & ie EL cred arena ts ae dJent ee Re | [ t ko cur Lt E Elle “uur ae portrait and that of her teacher, Miss Annie Sullivan, a graduate of the Perkins Institute at Boston, and also reproduce in facsimile a letter written by Helen Keller to A. Graham Bell of Washington. It was only in March, 1887, that Miss Sullivan was engaged to give SCIENCE. [Vor eas No270 the first instruction to her pupil, who was then six years old. In a month the little girl learned to spell about four hundred words, and in less than three months could write a letter unaided by any one. In six weeks she mastered the Braillé (French) system, which is a HELEN KELLER AND HER TEACHER, MISS ANNIE SULLIVAN. (Tt... aton, J did OSL | P Ul oearetac baa i= al LoL El pledia a . W eee H ¢ bees at ae tn Set Wash ene joy bney Ar fh cipher for the blind, enabling them to read what they have written. She has also mastered addition, multiplication, subtraction, and geography. The illustration shows the method in which all this in- formation has been transmitted, — solely through the sense of touch. ~ 161 SCIENCE. APRIL 6, 1888. ] aan ae Ba al ha ef! 3] lt haaay D 3Uy 300 eee od ENe ee AMI yan} pus hey en eee || oe pee : 7S) 27S Baa ok, Wiel? \\ "FULT Seg a ee less Vale 34 (ee 7 2?) q ees . Buoy mn. fi. BALL pa 53ap 7 Ye rau To a Vp eA ee 43h 7 ou und 3H ‘ oF paok OU. 53 aro : mm wan y 7 uy AAG 7 Unt ee cee ea sis hy 44 14 goak yume) pip 1P4 i TLL ie PN oll ee. he 2) fia a Sane 45 as IH ws ( ~ yh lade 162 SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON. Mr. Goodfellow’s Report: the Locus of the Zemblor ; Description of the Great Fault ; Damage to Towns; the Shaking-up of the Moun- tains ; Fixing the Epicentral Area ; Indications of Two or More Impulses ; the Direction of the Wave; the Time. — Distortion in Plane-Table Sheets. The Sonora Earthquake. Mr. GEORGE E. GOODFELLOW of Tombstone, Arizona, has just sent to Capt. C. E. Dutton, of the United States Geological Survey, a carefully prepared report on the earthquake which occurred May 3, 1887, in the south-western part of the United States and in the northern portion of Mexico. His observations were made during two journeys to the centre of disturbance in Sonora. Very little was learned by the first journey, principally because the time was wasted in searching for an alleged active volcano which had been ~ graphically described by an imaginative correspondent of the New York Herald, but which never existed. Inasecond trip, Mr. Goodfellow met Prof. José G. Aguileria, of the Mexican Exploring Commission, which was engaged in making a similar investigation. An arrangement was made with him by Mr. Goodfellow to exchange information ; but, as he had received no report from Professor Aguileria as late as March 5 of the pres- ent year, his report is based almost exclusively upon his own observations. After having explained why it was absolutely impossible to ascer- tain the time of the first shock in and about the epicentral area, and some other important data, on account of the absence of time- pieces, the illiteracy of the people and their indisposition to give facts if they had them, the sparse population and inaccessibility of the country, the absence of all means of rapid communication or transit, and, last but not least, the unparalleled severity of the rainy season of 1887, Mr. Goodfellow says, — “ The seismic movements of May 3, 1887, were felt from Toluca, capital of the State of Mexico, 26 leagues south-west from the City of Mexico, to Albuquerque or Santa Fé on the north, and from Yuma and Guaymas on the west, to a point about 60 miles east of E] Paso on the east... . A central tract of maximum intensity, owing to superficial manifestations of ruinous energy, can be located with a considerable degree of certainty, and may be placed in the San Bernardino valley, and probably a contiguous portion of the Teras Mountains. “The valley of the San Bernardino is a typical south-western one. It takes its name from an alleged stream, which rises near the border, in the United States, and, flowing southwards, empties into the Yaqui. These south-western valleys may be divided into three parts, —the narrow bed of the water-course; the alluvial overflow bottom; and the mesas, including the foot-hills of the encompassing mountains, for one merges into the other so rapidly, it is hard to tell where the dividing-line may be. Confining my description to the central seismic region, —the Cordilleras of Mexico, — the Sierra Madres, wherein it lies, may be said to have a general north-and-south course. The main chain is composed of numerous short ranges having a trend of 20° north or 30° west. Between each of these ranges is a pass with commonly an easterly and westerly direction, usually carrying more or less water. The valleys before described have the north-and-south direction of the bordering mountains. These mountains, varying in altitude from four thousand to ten thousand feet, are composed, for the most part, of tertiary metamorphic and eruptive rocks. In the range east of the Fronteras valley, and also east of the San Bernardino, are paleozoic strata, presumably carboniferous. The mesas are made up of more or less closely aggregated drift from the moun- tains. The depth of this detritus may be gauged bya description of some mesas in the neighborhood of Babispe. Between Babispe and the Madera Mountains is a mesa several miles in length which is completely isolated. The level of the river at Babispe is about 2,950 feet; and this mesa rises to the height of 4,500 feet, 1,500 feet above the altitude of the river, and is composed entirely of coarse drift. This is shown in many places by channels of lateral erosion. “The water-courses display the usual phenomena of south-west- em streams, water appearing in occasional places throughout the SCIENCE. [Vo... XI. No. 270 entire length of the bed, but a great quantity from a few inches to a few feet beneath the surface. On the eastern margin of the San Bernardino valley, where mesas merge into foot-hills, close to the steeper part of the mountains; on the mesas and in the water- courses of the valley, — are located the evidences of the severity of the earthquake. These consist of a single large fault and many minor fissures and downthrows. The former is on the base of the mountains ; the latter, on the mesas and in the immediate beds of the streams. The large fault begins at the northern end of the valley, a few miles south of the line, in what is called Elias Creek, a tributary of the San Bernardino, It commences very gradually on the southern bank of the stream, increasing in widthas it makes a curve towards the cafion of Los Embudos, from which point to its end the general direction of the fissure is north and south. It has a winding course, following the tortuous line of the base of the ranges in all its sinuosities to and across the Yaqui River, into the Teras Mountains some miles. Its total length, as far as followed, is about thirty-five miles.” In a private letter to Captain Dutton, Mr. Goodfellow says, ‘In a note to Sczence, I stated that the fault was one hundred miles in length. This was a great error.” He then explains that there are no good maps of Sonora and Chihuahua, save one, and that one he had not seen at the time. He was therefore obliged to judge of the length of the fis- sure by the time it took him to travel, and by very uncertain Mexi- can reports of distances. ‘‘ The average difference of level between the two sides is a little over seven feet. In some places, as oppo- site Pitaicachi, the difference is much greater. In its entirety north of the Yaqui, it conforms to the usual law of faults by having the hanging wall the lowest; but, after passing that river some two miles, there is a place for a short distance, some two or three hun- dred yards, where the hanging wall is the highest. The difference in level of the portion south of the river is about three feet. At the point mentioned, where the hanging wall is elevated, the varia- tion is a trifle more. “The first question rising in the mind, after viewing the fissure, is, ‘Is it an ideal fault, or the mere changing of the drift of the mesas by reason of alteration in subterranean reservoirs of the val- ley?’ As favoring the first view, is the fact that it lies so near to the base of the mountains its entire length. With the structure of the valleys, before described, did it lie out on the mesas away from the foot of the Sierras, the conclusion would be almost irresistible that it is nothing more than a slip of alluvial drift, as the river-bed downthrows undoubtedly are. But, by examining closely its doca/e and characteristics, there seems a preponderance of evidence favor- ing the first opinion. Still there is this one thing to be recorded : nowhere in its path, as far as I saw it, can be seen an instance of the solid rock showing a participation in the fissuring, except at Pitaicachi, where a dike may be seen in the breast of the slip. This, I think, is more apparent than real. There are but three places that I saw along the line where such rents could show. These are, first, a small cafion a short distance north of Pitaicachi ; second, a cafion in the Cabellera Mountains; next, at the Yaqui River. In all of these places is running water, which would have been sufficient to destroy evidence of petrous rupture. In the up- per canon, which I will call ‘ Elisu,’ the fissure passes some three hundred feet to the west, and below a stratified mass of shaly rock which rises abruptly at this point. The approaches to these canons are very steep; the walls at the locus mentioned being on the southern side almost vertical, on the other at an angle of at least 45°. The causes, then, of partial non-appearance of the crack on the sides of the cafion are self-evident, — the inclination is too great. In every one of the other arroyos and canons crossed by the fissure, the bottom had as great a rent as the surface of the mesa above, and the walls were depressed proportionately to their inclination. In the Cabellera Canon the fault is somewhat closer to the rocks, but, aside from this, the other manifestations are the same. I have no doubt that in both, at the time of the first disturbance, the alteration of level in their beds was equal to that on each side above, but the stream soon filled and levelled them. That this is the true solution of the problem, I have had ample evidence in other arroyos usually dry. In these, succeeding the rains and con- sequent temporary torrential flow, the break was rapidly evened, and was no more visible than in the places mentioned. At San APRIL 6, 1888.] Rafael, where it crosses the Yaqui, the explanation is not so easy. Approaching the river from the north, until within less than a mile, the average drop is maintained. There, however, it gradually diminishes until within about three hundred feet of the stream, where it becomes simply a crack in the bluff which leads to the river-bank. On the opposite side it recommences as gradually, but never attains the old width, not exceeding in any place over five feet, and gently lessening, until at the point I abandoned it, nearly five miles south of the river, the difference in level is a foot or less. On this southern portion may be noticed two facts, —first, the course is more directly into the mountains; no longer hugging their base, it strikes directly for their heart: next, and perhaps not the least important, is the phenomenon of the hanging-wall eleva- tion instead of depression. At the place I left off following it, a division into two occurred, the split taking place at the foot of a moderately high hill of reddish-looking metamorphic rock. Wheth- er the fissure extends farther to the south, I cannot of my own knowledge say. From some intelligent prospectors that went into the Teras Mountains afterwards, attracted by the idea that such terrestrial commotion ought to develop some leads of mineral, and whom I asked to note any peculiarities observed, I learned that it does extend about fifteen miles more to the south. From the diminutive size of the fault where I last saw it, this seems to me improbable. It certainly is not impossible, and the statement may be taken sud judzce. One thing is assured: the Teras Mountains have been wofully broken up; this I personally know. I have been told by Colonel Kosterlitzky, who has recently been there, that on the Chihuahua side of the Espuelas and Pitaicachi, is a duplicate of the San Bernardino fault. I have endeavored to con- firm this, but without success. “When I first viewed the end on the northern side of the river at San Rafael, it seemed certain that there was the termination of the rupture; and it was not until one of my Mexican escorts had crossed the stream, and hunted in the thick brush, that it was discovered leading up the hill. The explanation of the diminution at this place to a mere crack on each side of the river is not entirely plain to my mind: therefore I leave the problem to you for solution. The rock is indubitably involved in the slip at this point, although the drift prevents it from being seen. If it was not, there could be no fault- ing of even an inch, for it is not loose mesa drift, simply a slight covering with the results of cliff denudation. The solid rock shows close on both sides of the fault. “The pass through the mountains, where the Yaqui reverses its course, is a very narrow one, three or four miles in length. The walls are perpendicular on each side, rising to the height of several hundred feet, and are composed, as are the immediate hills on the north and the mountains on the south, of some reddish-gray look- ing rock, probably eruptive. At the point where the river de- bouches from the pass, and on the last bluff on the north, the fault passes through its centre, becoming a mere crack. The pass is, or was then, impassable, though some of the Mexicans with me said they had gone through it when the river was very low: atall other times it is impossible to penetrate the gorge. “Some things to be noticed about the fault, in connection with its sinuous course, are the small fissures at each bend with any great degree of angularity. These occur on the salients of each angle, but have no great length, in no place extending over a few hundred yards, except opposite the Cabellera Mountains, where there is a triplicate division over a mile in length. This gives the main fault the appearance of having been compressed lineally from the south, most of them having the free end to the north. They are mostly ground-throws, not simply cracks. “From Pitaicachi to Cabellera Cafion the fault is far up on the immediate foot-hills, and subsequently crosses them where there can be no doubt as to a petrous substructure at slight depth. But, as all of them are more or less extensively covered with dédyzs, I saw no spot in the face of the fault where a rent of solid rock was visible. Neither did I follow it closely through this section, owing to the weather when there. Thus I missed exploring the locality of all others which might have illustrated the point at issue. No one, however, who might stand and look over the ground at that section could doubt, that, even if nowhere else there was slipping of solid rock, here certainly there must be. A point which attracted SCLEN CGE: 163 my attention, and which seemed significant, was the appearance of the foot-wall of the slip in many places, particularly where it abutted closely on the mountains. This was the polished surface, as if the same place had been the seat of similar perturbations in the past. At these points the drift appeared to be more thoroughly consoli- dated than at other localities. This striation and polishing began within a few inches of the upper margin of the wall, —a place where one would think slipping of the loosely aggregated mesa drift would cause such an appearance. In addition, the fault at these places usually was backed a short distance by the more dur- able portion of the mountains, generally a bluff of some extent from fifty feet to one hundred yards away. In no part of the line of greatest drop is the fall less than eight feet, while in many places it exceeds twenty. The estimated altitude of the mountains is, Guadaloupes, Espuelas, and Cabelleras, about 7,000 feet; the Teras, 9,000 to 10,000. “This, then, is a description of the big fault. We will now con- sider the river-bed cracks and downthrows, for they come next in size. Beginning about the San Bernardino Ranch, at the line, these lesions exist as far as Granadas, which was as far south as I went. These ruptures are not continuous. This form is most marked about Batepito and Babispe. It is safe to say that the bed of every water-course in the San Bernardino valley has changed level rela- tive to the mesa from six inches to two feet. This has nothing to do with the alteration of height as connected with, or caused by, the great fault: that is additional. These river-bottom dislocations seem to be a breaking-away of the bed from the enclosing mesa. The mesas composed of drift are from twenty to one hundred and fifty feet in height above the alluvial bottom, averaging perhaps fifty. The cracks begin at or within a few feet of the base of these terraces, and their course is that of the river-bed. The extent of these from San Bernardino in a direct line I have told. They also run from Bacerac to below San Miguelito, on the upper portion of the Yaqui, but are lost sight of at that point. Whether this be due to a total absence, or to the fact that the trail leads away from the river, I cannot tell; but from a short distance below San Miguel, to a crossing called ‘ Pedregoso,’ I saw none, at such points as we struck the river in the line of the trail. These fords, however, were at places where the nature of the channel would have pre- vented any such phenomena, it being rocky and narrow. The Fronteras valley, east of the San Bernardino, but tributary to it, as may be seen by the water-course, was severely cracked up in the same manner, but in a degree not to be compared with the two first named. “In addition to these cracks and dislocations in the valleys named, were lesions of another kind, — outbursts of sand and water through fissures and small crater-like holes, a few inches to a foot or more in diameter. This phenomenon was experienced in the Sulphur Spring and San Pedro valleys in the United States to a considerable extent, but not with the severity found farther south. At Batepito Ranch, an area two miles long by one wide was four or more inches deep with water immediately succeeding the first shock on May 3. This was the greatest quantity of water thrown up at any one place; but the total amount must have been very great, as the craters are met with wherever the river-cracks exist, and sometimes where they do not. “ The next class of fissures are simple cracks without depression existing on the mesas. None of them are, as naturally would be the case, through solid rock. They are many and extensive on the mesas of the San Bernardino valley, and have a general direction towards the main fault. Their width varies from an inch to a foot or two, usually under a foot. “Next of the surface phenomena to be considered is the line of devastation in the mountains. Here we find millions of cubic feet of rock thrown down from the mountains to the cafions and water- courses below. Cliffs of solid crystalline rock are shattered and split, as if a charge of giant-powder had been lodged carefully amongst them for the express purpose of annihilating them. The magnitude of the quake can be appreciated more by the evidences of its force in the mountains than by the fault. The fault has the appearance, and gives the idea, that it could not be helped: it simply sunk, as Topsy growed. But the rending and splitting of such masses as the mountain-cliffs impress one with a profound idea 164 and respect for the forces at work. This line of devastation will again be referred to. “Of the towns most damaged, the principal one was Babispe. This typical little Mexican town lies on the west bank’of the Yaqui or ‘Babispe’ River, as it is there called. The old town is situated on a terrace of the larger mesa, where the new town is. This lower mesa is about thirty feet above the river-level, and about sixty feet below the surface of the upper mesa. The composition of the mesa is, as previously indicated, loosely aggregated drift from the moun- tains. At this place the superficial deposit is very imperfectly con- solidated. Back of the town, to the west, is the Madera range of mountains, a branch of the Teras. The range is directly to the west, and it cannot be over three or four miles away. So far as the method of Mallet in noting angles of emergence, etc., is concerned, I have this to say: there is not the slightest doubt that Mr. Mal- let, or one equally as expert, could have succeeded with it, for there were plenty of fissured walls and overturned objects on which to work, There were all angles of emergence in one building, — cracks ranging from ten degrees to vertical, with several diverging branches. It seems to me that all that can be gathered out of the chaotic state of affairs is, that there has been a considerable shake- up. Apparently the buildings are very substantial, being con- structed of adobes 24x12. These are laid double, which makes all walls 24 inches in width. The average height is 8 to 1o feet ; only one in the town having been greater, and that was 22 feet. The roofs are made by laying rafters, or ‘vigas’ as they are called, from one wall to the other; then covering these with cane, ocotilla, or brush, and that with mud, to a thickness of at least six inches. This makes an extremely heavy roof, but certainly the most suitable one for the climate. Above the vigas is built a slight coping, or fire-wall; and at intervals are openings with wooden troughs to permit the passage of rain-water. The remains of the building with the four corner posts standing are those of an exceptionally built one; and a very lucky exception it was in this case, for it saved the lives of four persons who were in it at the time. “Of the dwellings destroyed, the major portion were on the northern and eastern side of the plaza. All walls facing the plaza on its west side whose linear direction was north and south were thrown down, falling toward the east. These were from eight to twenty feet in width, averaging pfobably ten feet. Of the houses on the south side of the plaza, which lie at the junction of the ter- race on which the town is, with the foot of the mesa above, none were seriously damaged. They were more or less cracked, but were not prostrated. The church is the most conspicuous monu- ment of the devastating energy of the femdb/or. It was not, per- haps, as substantial a structure as some of our slighter but more modern civilized buildings, but it certainly could lay claim to the dignity of having withstood the storms and prayers of at least two centuries, “ The destruction of life was, in my opinion, largely due to the style of architecture. The walls were not held together. In some instances I found the north-and-south walls had separated and let the vigas down into the house on one side. This involved motion of at least a foot. The walls two feet thick, viga laid to cover the entire width was obliged to slip that distance before it could drop. The horizontal cracks at the base of the walls indicated the motion. All damage was done by the first shock. The effect of subsequent tremors was visible only by psychological manifestations. Almost without exception, both sexes gave way to their terror, and devoted themselves to religious exercises for the purpose of propitiating the wrath of —so the priest said — a justly offended Deity. “Opotu was the next town of any size to suffer considerable in- jury. This place lies south-west of Babispe, on the Yaqui River. It is situated on a bluff of alluvial drift on the bank of the river, some fifty feet above the stream. The axes of the two are pretty much the same as those of Babispe, almost north, south, east, and west; the population a trifle greater. There were nine people killed outright, and several others injured. I think the intensity of the shock here was fully as great as in Babispe; but the buildings did not possess the age of those in the latter place, none in Opotu being much over twenty-five years old, while none in Babispe were less than one hundred or two hundred. Perhaps this made less difference than at first sight seems possible. Owing to the manner of construc- SCIENCE, [VoL. XI. No. 270 tion, a certain amount of repairs are constantly necessitated, which would, of course, tend to render them more stable. Of the walls thrown down, with two or three exceptions, all fell to the west- ward, though the upper portion of a few of the east-and-west walls had toppled over towards the south. Walls over twelve feet in length, with their linear axis east and west, suffered entirely in the east and west corners. Where they were shorter, they were thrown down, falling indifferently north or south. The charac- teristic damage received by all houses not prostrated was in the corners. “Jn Fronteras several buildings were destroyed, and one child killed. Fronteras is just off the overflow bottom of the little stream which goes by the name of the ‘ Fronteras River.’ The river is about three-quarters of a mile to the east of the village, and nearly on the same level. A portion of the pueblo is on an isolated drift mesa thirty to fifty feet higher than the remainder. On this mesa is where most of the damage was done. It is not over one hundred feet wide at any portion of it occupied by the houses, consequently presents facilities for amplitude of wave-motion not possessed by the lower town. The Fronteras valley is many miles in width, mesas included, and the alluvial part of it is thoroughly water- soaked. The river-bed skirts rather closely the ranges of moun- tains on the eastern side of the valley. The buildings of Fronteras are of great age,—one to two hundred years. San Bernardino Ranch may be considered as on the same isoseismal. Here were two buildings of adobe, presumably substantial, though slighter than the Mexican-built structures. Both were instantly prostrated at the time of the first shock, fortunately injuring no one. “ The foregoing makes up the pueblo line of maximum intensity. I wish now again to consider what I have ventured to name the mountain circle of worst disturbance, or the interior line of maxi- mum intensity. The line of demarcation is as distinct as a street in a city. In the order in which I saw them, would be, first, the one on the trail to Babispe, south of Bedregoso. This is from one hundred to three hundred yards in width: it is difficult to tell, as the route is through a deep, narrow canon, but through there the shattering of the rocks has been extensive. Tons have fallen into the cafions from the cliffs above. Before reaching that point, the disturbance has been moderate, and, after passing, the country has the same appearance. The next place passed having the look of equal dynamic energy was far to the south, on the range between Bacadehuachi and Granadas, about halfway, probably a trifle nearer the latter. Here identical phenomena were exhibited, —a narrow line where rocks, shaly and crystalline, have been terribly broken up. . . . On the trail from Opotu to Fronteras, between Nacosart and the Yaqui, and a little more than halfway from Fronteras to Batepito, similar phenomena were seen. “ The preceding localities form an isoseismal which I have called as above. Let me relate some of the objective symptoms which have determined my opinion in this matter. In the course of my journey, in spite of the condition of Batepito, I came to the con- clusion that the epicentral area was in the Teras Mountains. The principal reason I had for this was the character of phenomena hourly occurring. During all the time I was circling that region, those mountains were continually the seat of various seismic mani- festations. The principal of those was the rumbling, roaring, or, as it seemed to me, the groaning of those massive peaks. Usually this would be succeeded by a more or less severe shock; but many times the noise would be heard, lasting a minute or more, but no tremor followed. While I was in the neighborhood, certainly, all seismic disturbances had their origin from those mountains, irre- spective of my situation. I had rigged up a seismograph, if such a contrivance can be entitled to the name, consisting of a bullet sus- pended in a large beer-bottle. This, with moderate accuracy, gave me the direction of the vibrations, and all seemed to come from the northern end of the Teras Mountains, Connecting these interior mountain-points, and erecting perpendiculars, the mean epicen- trum is thrown south of the San Bernardino valley. Ifthe Babispe, Opotu, Fronteras, and San Bernardino Ranch are joined, and the same plan pursued, the upper end begins about Pitaicachi, and the lower somewhere near the other mean. “ Admitting that the central region is about the north end of the Teras,-and the southern portion of the San Bernardino valley, the APRIL 6, 1888. | peculiarity which attracted my attention was apparently the two circles of maximum intensity, — the mountain-line, and the one indicated by the destroyed and injured towns. The solution is for you. But the thought has obtruded itself in my mind, why cannot there be areas of re-enforcement in earth as in water waves, where a succession of small impulses are followed by an aggregated one? This by reflection and accumulation of successive shocks from the focus. Of course, the point could be placed on the isoseismal of the towns, or considered as areas of characteristic epicentral dis- turbance. Noteworthy is the immunity of Bacerac and San Miguel; the former nine miles south, the latter three and one-half miles to the north, of Babispe. Though the energy of the shock was undoubt- edly great, no serious damage was inflicted, save to the feelings of the inhabitants ; and the degree of religious frenzy originated, more than compensated for the lack of seismic perturbations. They can be put on the isoseismal of Tombstone. “Of the effects of the fezd/or, none have been of greater inter- est or more importance than the modification of the water-supply of the shaken district. During the first shock, all over the area of severe and even moderate vibration, the phenomena of water-cra- ters were exhibited. This, however, was merely a temporary affair, the flow ceasing as soon as the violent shaking was over. It is the permanent re arrangement of the water-distribution which we have to consider. Many apocryphal stories have been told of the won- derful increase of water in the Yaqui and other streams immediate- ly succeeding the earthquake. In addition to the outpouring of the crater water, many springs were made. This latter effect was not, however, an instantaneous one. In most of the rivers and springs where there has been increase, at first they went almost dry; then in a few days or weeks was a gradual augmentation of water, this antedating the rainyseason. At the present time there is an alter- ation in the water-supply, with others, of the following streams and springs: the rivers of Fronteras, Yaqui, and San Bernardino; the springs of Penuelas and several others with uncertain names; the arroyos of the passes, Elias, Elisu, and Cabellera. Most important is the Yaqui River. This gradually gained in volume after the first diminution, until the flow equalled its midwinter amount. The San Bernardino is now flowing from head to mouth, a thing never before known at this season of the year, and is said to be gaining. Several important springs on the eastern side of the mountains, opposite Babispe in Chihuahua, were increased in size, notably Penuelas on the Carretas Ranch. A number of entirely new springs were started. In fact, over the entire central seismic region, the water- supply has visibly augmented. In considering this, the effect of an unusually severe rainy season must be estimated. “The rainy season of 1887 has been unequalled since 1881. There was, however, an unquestioned gain of water before this set in. But when it did come, there was nothing by which one could judge whether a specified enlarged flow was due to rain or ¢em- élor. The summer rainfall has been added to greatly by an ex- traordinary winter downpour. Altogether, there has been sufficient celestial increment to throw considerable doubt on the proximate origin of the terranean and subterranean surplus. Unlike the treasury surplus, there is no need of reduction. It is required. By reason of this extraordinary quantity of aerial moisture, the es- timate of the value of the quake to the country must be held as subject to modifications in the future, should a dry season super- vene, and demonstrate that the abundance of water was due to the heavens, not to the earth. One cannot contemplate the San Bernar- dino valley without believing that such stupendous changes as are there manifest must have caused some permanent alteration in the subterranean reservoir, — either increment or decrement. And if, at the lapse of a year, a decided increase is noted, as has been, the former result must be concluded to have taken piace. “Tt will be noted in all reports that the direction of the first shock is given as from west to east. This, perforce, in most in- stances can be nought but error, especially on the line of the rail- roads from Guaymas north. But let us consider the case of the Sulphur Spring valley. At the time of the primary quake a cattle round-up was going on at the station called Abbott’s Ranch. The house is near the centre of the valley, which is here nearly thirty miles wide, and thoroughly waterlogged. There is no running SClE NCE: 165 stream; but over its entire area water exists, from a few feet in depth on the margin, to but a few inches in the centre, which is full of swampy holes. It is a mass of alluvium, neither the mesas nor the bordering ranges on the west or east encroaching much on the margins. All reports from this place (and I have interviewed at least thirty of the one hundred or less men present when the first shock occurred) say it came from the west. The explanation I have to advance for this may or may not be a tenable one. It is this : in all earthquakes, near the central region there is what may be called a ‘resonant area’ preceding the vibratory movements of the earth. This, in the Zezblor of May 3, antedated the onset of the tremors a sufficiently long time to have passed to the west and north-west at the instant the shake began. Of course, the noise being in the west, the origin of the simultaneous terranean move- ments was of necessity located there. This, however, does not en- tirely answer for the Sulphur Spring valley. There they claim to have seen the rocks falling and the dust rising on the western side of the valley first, and some seconds later the same phenomena on the eastern. I am inclined to think that this is to a certain extent true. Myreasons are the character and continuity of the mountain- ranges extending from the western side of the epicential area to the western portion of the valley, and the nature of the valley itself. The rate of vibration and wave-propagation must have been modi- fied by passing through so saturated and heterogeneous a mass as the latter. The mountains are not actually continuous between the points mentioned, but there is less breaking, therefore slighter ap- parent chance of interruption, on that line than any other; and it seems not an improbable or impossible hypothesis to assume that the waves, both of sound and of movement, were propagated along that line most rapidly, and did reach the western side of the valley anterior to the time they made their appearance in the east. If this be not the solution of such united testimony, it must be solved in some other way. I think the time-data indicate this view of it, though in this you must be the judge. “ Among other seguwe//z, the mountain-fires which the effects of the earthquake were the sole factors in originating, were due to two causes, — falling bowlders and the emission of ignited gases. The Sierra Madre fires were, beyond question, synchronous, and arose similarly. The evidences of gaseous irruption were few but striking. Primarily were the statements of many who claim to have seen streaks of flame at different points, in the course of the first night in. particular, and several times thereafter during suc- ceeding days and nights while the heavy shocks continued. This evidence might have been a subjective sensation purely, due to in- herent mendacity, or phenomena of fright similar to the stellar exhibition of syncope. The objective testimony cannot, I believe, be gainsaid. The shifting of such a tremendous mass of earth must have had some concomitant phenomena; and, if water and gas shot out to varying but moderate altitudes, why should not ignited gas do the same? It did; and the evidence was found in several places, both in the river-beds and in the hills along the line of faulting. This consisted of cinders about the margins and on the walls of the river-fissures, and the discovery of burnt branches overhanging the edges of such places, as well as the same testi- mony on some of the hills and mountains near the main fault. « Anywhere near one hundred and fifty miles of the centre the energy of the shocks was considerable. All along the Sonora Railroad, from Guaymas to Nogales, and from the latter place to Benson, Tucson, El Paso, and as far north as Albuquerque, gen- eral alarm was excited. From Charleston to Benson, in the San Pedro valley, was a section of quite violent and terrifying motion. Water-tanks slopped over, cars were set in motion on the track, chimneys thrown down, buildings cracked, and water spouted up from the ground. The last-mentioned phenomenon was not ex- hibited north of Fairbanks. The track sank and bent at a point where it runs in an east-and-west course, about two miles west of Fairbanks. The convexity of the bend was south. These villages and stations are in the narrow, alluvial bottom of the river-course. “ At Batepito are some old adobe houses. They were frail and in ruins many years anterior to the earthquake, but it is remarkable that the remaining walls were not prostrated by the shock. Of course, some of the upper portion was broken off, and one or two having roofs crumbled in. Such structures in Babispe, Opotu, 166 Fronteras, or San Bernardino, would have been demolished. These houses stand in the centre of the section mentioned as having been covered with water several inches deep, and which has sunk over four feet. “ Tombstone being the nearest place where a number of time- observations could be compared, it becomes requisite to know with as great exactitude as possible the instant the shock arrived. At the onset of the ¢emzb/ov I had just noted the time, and my watch was partially in my hand in the act of returning it to my pocket. When I looked, it was 2.48 mining time, which was that day thirty- five minutes faster than standard or railroad time. When, recog- nizing the nature of the phenomena occurring, I again looked at my watch, just one and three-quarters minutes had elapsed. This was after the tremors had passed. The noise, resembling artillery- firing more than any thing else, continued for some seconds, dying slowly away in the north, to return in afew seconds from the south. By careful comparison and consideration of at least thirty different statements as to the Tombstone time, I am compelled to put the onset at 2.13, with a possible and probable error of ten or fifteen seconds. From Guaymas to Benson I have made personal inqui- ries, and think there is room for more error than in the Tombstone time. The difference in Sonora time and standard was that day thirty-four minutes. “As concisely as possible I have tried to convey to you the facts as seen by myself, and ventured some crude notions based upon my interpretation of the observed phenomena. My idea of the ex- planation of the opinion that the shocks came from the west is not altogether theory. I have had the good or bad fortune to have witnessed and felt a large number of mild and severe ¢emdélors the past year; and if the judgment of a non-expert, based upon per- sonal experience, be worth consideration, then the assumption is not valueless, and is worthy of your investigation.” Mr. Goodfellow’s report is accompanied by maps and photo- graphs, references to which are omitted here, as have also been some few brief passages not essential to a comprehension of the facts. Distortion in Plane-Table Sheets. Mr. H. G. Ogden presented to the Philosophical Society, March 17, some observations on the effects produced in a plane-table sheet by its absorption of moisture. It is well known that wetting a sheet of paper causes it to swell or expand, and that, when the sheet has dried again, it has returned to about its original dimen- sions. Mechanical draughtsmen have realized the errors liable to occur in their work from this cause, and have effected a partial remedy by shrinking the paper upon a board, and securing the edges to prevent further contraction, and then to provide against expansion by working in a reasonably dry air. Surveyors using the plane table resort to the same devices when executing work of great refinement, especially if they have not the check afforded by the positions of a triangulation previously plotted on the sheet. But even with a well-conditioned triangulation, unless the paper is glued to the board, the contraction is frequently the cause of great annoyance, and sometimes of error. When a sheet of paper expands from moisture, the percentage of increase in length is less in the direction of the grain of the paper than at right angles to that direction, or across the grain, and the difference between these percentages is practically the distor- tion. If the percentage of increase should be the same in both directions, there would be only a change of scale: all distances would be proportionally increased, and the points would bear the same relations to each other as before the expansion. While it is true that the primary cause of the distortion is the ab- sorption of moisture, the resultant effect is usually a permanent contraction, subject only to slight changes, except under the condi- tion of excessive moisture. It is while this point of permanent con- traction is being reached that the greatest annoyance is experienced and the most serious errors are likely to occur. Mr. Ogden then described a series of experiments made at the Coast Survey office some years ago, to ascertain the changes in length that took place in the hand-made antiquarian paper backed with muslin. Inspec- tion of these observations, when plotted in the form of a curve, shows that there was a decided tendency to assume a state of per- SCIENCE: [Vot. XI. No. 270 manent contraction. The readings at this point for each cross- section are 35 and 26 d. c. m., or at the rate of a little over .5 d.c.m. per inch of paper in one case, and .4d. c. m. in the other. The difference between these rates is the average distor- tion in this case, —a quantity that is quite appreciable in a foot of paper, and very plainly so intwofeet. In field-work, Mr. Ogden said that he had frequently found the distortion double this amount, and in one instance he remembered it nearly three times as large. He had also worked a whole season without any appreciable devel- opment of distortion. In charts or maps printed from copperplates, or by any process that required wetting the paper, this distortion is largely developed, usually averaging as great as one per cent, and, if inferior paper has been used, as much as two or three per cent. The fact that this distortion exists is frequently not realized even by the most ex- pert navigators, and some even magnify the errors by laying off courses with a protractor, discarding the compass-cards printed with the chart. These compass-cards are affected by the contrac- tion exactly as the sheet is: directions ascertained by them are per- fectly good, but the graphic angle between any two directions is erroneous, except in the case where the directions are on the lines of contraction. L Mr. Ogden then referred to a diagram, a copy of which is given herewith. 4, B, C, etc., were plotted in the true relations. After A B ane | Se on ee (0 oI Zz SNe ey Poe ae eo ne FZ i ine wa > LL I A | : oo 1 | SS 7 1 | Gee 1 | IGA, H Z { Z 1 Z 1 1 1 HA th rh the sheet has contracted, a, 0, c, etc., represent the relations those points have assumed. The paper contracts at a uniform rate in each direction. The table is supposed to be at Y, the exact centre of the figure, and it is required to determine the position by the distorted points a, b,c, etc. By reversing the telescope, we immediately ascertain that we are directly on the line HD. It will also show that we are on the lines JZ, CG, and BF. But the distortion is not apparent until the telescope is pointed at the signals, and the lines are drawn on the sheet. Then if we orient by the line HD, we shall produce the figure of the diagram, giving five determinations, 1, 2, 3, 4, and .Y, each made with four well-conditioned points. Any one of these positions would be considered satisfactory if we-had not the other points to show that something was wrong. To orient by the lines BF will produce the same result. But if we take the diag- onal AZ, we shall have two positions at 5 and7, formed by the intersection of the diagonal points, with the lines from the other points running wild. Using the diagonal CG would give two points at 6 and 8, with the lines at the other points running wild, as before. There is no question, that, out of the nine positions developed by these settings, that at Y is the only true compromise. When the sheet is distorted, all positions are compromises ; and X is the true compromise in this case, for it is on the lines GC, AZ, etc.: @ being below, and e above, the line connecting A and £, by equal quanti- ties, a line drawn between the distorted points @ and e must pass through the middle point X. The positions 5, 6, 7, and § cannot be true, because the lines forming them will not pass through the Aprit 6, 1888.] opposite points when extended, which we know to be conditions that must be filled. The plane table is essentially a direction instrument. Theoreti- cally we can do perfect work without knowing a single distance, and afterwards, by measuring some length between objects marked on the sheet, determine a scale for the whole. This being the case, the angle at the occupied station, between two points marked on the sheet, will be the same wherever the points may happen to be on the paper. It is the practical application of the geometric functions of similar triangles. But the distortion of a sheet destroys these perfect proportions, for we have to preserve directions betyveen fixed objects, and knowingly increase or diminish the angle con- tained between the directions. As at X, we know that it is in its proper position on the line between ae, cg, etc.; but we know also that the angle aX% is smaller than it is in nature, and the angle aXc is larger. This forcing the position does not produce any appreciable error in the work represented, as in short distances, like filling in detail around the station, the distortion cannot be measured, and in long distances it can be eliminated. It is evident that a station made by three points on the lines of contraction will give the table the true orientation, for the effect of the distortion upon three points so situated is only that of a change of scale, and a change of scale does not affect orientation. But the position of the station made in relation to the other points on the table is not true, owing to the change of scale not being the same on both lines of contraction. From the conditions presented, Mr. Ogden deduced the following rules : — (1) A station made with three points that are on the lines of contraction, the resecting lines forming nearly right angles at their intersection, will give the true position in relation to all points on the sheet (as %, 4, and @). (2) A similar condition of right-angular intersection at the station, but the lines forming diagonals to the lines of contraction, will give the worst possible position for the station (as a, c, and e@). (3) A station made with three points on one of the lines of con- traction will give the correct orientation of the table (asa, 2, and). (4) In estimating errors of the points due to distortion, those situated on the lines of contraction require no allowance, however distant. Mr. Ogden then explained the treatment in cases where only three points were visible, — first, when all of them are on the lines of contraction ; second, when two of them are on the lines of con- traction, and one of them not; and, third, when neither of them is on the lines of contraction. The effects of distortion, as Mr. Ogden explains them, throws some light on the relative accuracy of plane-table triangulation. This class of work is good and reliable if the paper does not change its conditions ; but it is evident that a triangulation extended over a sheet that has contracted since the base was plotted on it, and the first few triangles laid down upon it, will be continued on vary- ing scales. We have but to conceive the triangles extended in the form of a parallelogram, working two sides of it from each of the separate bases to acommon point, to see the theoretical outcome of such conditions. Plane-table triangulation is liable to be further complicated by frequent changes of scale or different degrees of contraction as the work progresses, which prevent the possibility of computing the resultant errors. Some check can be obtained by subdividing the sheet into squares of uniform size, which will show, at least, how much the paper has changed when the work is finished. Such squares are an assistance in the information they give while the work is in progress ; and by carefully watching the changes in them it would be possible to apply corrections for the points of a plane- table triangulation that would eliminate the worst of the errors incident to such work. The uniformity in the contraction of a sheet of paper may also be taken advantage of in measuring the length of a diagonal line by drawing lines on the lines of contraction at right angles with each other; and, having obtained the true lengths of the two sides of the triangle, the third may be computed with at least as much accuracy as it could have been measured on the paper if the scale had not become distorted. SCIENCE. : 167 ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. Alternating versus Continuous Current Distribution. THE subject which most engrosses the attention of electric- lighting people at present, is the question of the relative values of continuous and alternating currents for electrical distribution. In England the matter was brought up by the papers of Messrs. Kapp and Mackenzie on transformers, while in this country a pamphlet issued by the Edison Company, attacking the alternating system, has been followed by two interesting papers read before the Chicago Electric Club, —one by Mr. Leonard in favor of the continuous, the other by Mr. Slatterly favoring the alternating sys- tem. The difficulty in all of this material is that it is distinctly partisan. In spite of this, it is valuable. The trouble, of .course, in getting reliable data on the subject, lies in the fact that those who have had most experience of the practical difficulties or advantages of a sys- tem are those who are directly interested in its working, and who. must have some bias in its favor. In the discussion before the Chicago Electric Club, Mr. Leonard, taking the matter up first, considers the following points: first cost, economy, reliability, value of possible sources of revenue, safety, effect on existing property. Under the first head he calculates the cost per lamp of the copper necessary for conductors in the direct system at different distances from the station: for example, with an average loss of eight per cent in the conductors, and a dis- tance of six thousand feet, the cost is $3.87 per lamp. With this. he compares the cost of the corresponding investment in the alter- nating system, — copper and transformers, — and makes it $4. This ison the assumption that copper is sixteen cents per pound. As it is principally in the cost of conductors that the alternating claims advantage over the direct system, Mr. Leonard’s figures would go. to prove the advantage of the latter for mean distances up to six thousand feet from the station. Passing to depreciation of the dis- tributing plant, Mr. Leonard claims that the conductors in the direct will depreciate in value less than the conductors and converters of the rival system. The reliability of the direct system would seem greater than that of the other ; for the apparatus is less complicated, and a breakdown of one engine or dynamo in a station will not affect the lights. The possible sources of revenue seem to Mr. Leonard more numerous in the continuous system. At present the alternating system can supply only light and —if it is ever needed — heat: its rival can be utilized for all the purposes to which elec- tricity can be applied. The danger of high potential alternating currents is dwelt upon, and fatal results were cited. Mr. Slatterly, in replying to the paper, disputes some of Mr. Leonard’s points. The estimates, based on sixteen cents per pound. for copper, would hardly apply to copper at nearly twenty-five cents, its present price. The alternating system has the advantage that it can be used at azy distance from the station, and the latter can be built on inexpensive ground, not in the middle of a crowded dis— trict where property is costly. Mr. Slatterly claims for the alter- nating system that the accidents that have happened are due to in- experience, and their occurrence was not a fault of the system. On the question of danger he states that alternating currents are not so dangerous as continuous currents of the same potential. As re- gards distribution of power, Mr. Slatterly thinks that an alternating electro-motor will soon be forthcoming. In considering electrical questions with a view of deciding be- tween two systems, we should consider two things, — economy under present conditions, and the probable progress in the near future. As things stand at present, we may say that the direct system has the disadvantages of a limited area of distribution, and the necessity of locating in a central position, where land is expen- sive : the alternating system has the disadvantage of a considerably greater loss in distribution, of greater complexity and consequent liability to accident, impossibility of distributing power, and danger. These considerations would point to the direct system being best in the central portions of cities, while the alternating system should be used for towns and for the suburbs of cities; possibly, too, as an auxiliary to arc-lighting stations. In the future the alternating system can hope for the perfection of a motor and the general improvement of the apparatus: the 168 direct system can hope, besides the ordinary improvements, for the perfection of some converter for direct currents; above all, for storage-batteries. If storage-batteries are successfully developed, the alternating system has nothing to offer that the direct system does not possess, while the advantages of the latter will be over- whelming. As we have already pointed out, however, a combina- tion of the two systems would undoubtedly be best at the present moment. ELECTRIC MOTORS FOR MINING-WORK.— Some contracts have just been completed by the Sprague Electric Motor Company that are being watched with interest by mine-owners. The most important order is for motors to be used on a circuit of about eighteen miles in length, for pumping, hoisting, etc. The river whose bed it is desired to work for gold, curves in a horseshoe shape; and a tunnel has been cut across the narrow part of the shoe, diverting the river from its bed. A turbine in the tunnel drives the generating-dynamo, while the motors are distributed along the bed of the river. Some of the other contracts are for running hoisting apparatus by motors, the power being obtained from streams distant two or three miles. There is no application of electricity with a wider field than the distribution of power, and nowhere can power be more successfully distributed by electricity than in mining-work. FARBARKY AND SCHENCK ACCUMULATORS.— Among the numerous modifications of the Faure-Sellon-Volckmar accumulators, ‘one of the most successful is the battery designed by Farbarky and Schenck. Originally the usual ‘grid’ form of support plate was used, the improvement consisting in mixing coke or other po- rous substance with the active material to give a better circulation of the electrolyte in the plate. Recently a change has been made in the shape of the holes in which the active material is contained. With the square hole completely filled with peroxide, there is no -allowance made for its slow expansion, and the result is the ‘ grow- ing’ of the positive plate, with, under certain conditions, a falling- out of the plugs. In the new Farbarky-Schenck plate the solid bars are circular in form, intersecting, and leaving between the larger openings smaller, narrow slits, that allow the peroxide in the main openings to expand without causing more than a slight local strain. While it seems possible that this form of plate is an im- provement on the ordinary type, yet it is hard to believe that plates made by pasting red lead or litharge into holes in lead frames can form the final type of storage-cell. In England, Germany, Austria, and this country, the Faure plan of using salts of lead mechanically applied to the support is almost universally used. In France, on the other hand, some modification of the Planté plate is usually em- ployed, the endeavor being to form active coatings on the lead sup- ports by the employment of an electric current, either forming the ‘peroxide from the material of the support, or depositing it from the solution employed. At present the Faure plan is most generally used, but it is probable that the final lead storage-cell will be made ‘by some modification of the Planté system. THE SCHANSCHEIFF PRIMARY BATTERY. — This battery has zine and carbon electrodes in a solution of basic sulphate of mer- -cury and bisulphate of mercury in water. The cell has been tested by Sir W. Thomson, Mr. Preece, and others, and has been highly ‘commended by them. The liquid can be quickly renewed when ex- hausted ; the expense is not great; and for certain classes of work, such as mine-lamps, the lighting of trains, etc., itis said to possess advantages in weight and economy over secondary batteries. BOOK-REVIEWS. The Lony White Mountazn ; or, A Journey in Manchuria. By -H. E. M. JAMES. London and New York, Longmans, Green, & Co. 8°. $6. WE have reported several times on the interesting journey of Messrs. James, Younghusband, and Fulford in the south-eastern portions of Manchuria. A full account of this journey has now been published. ‘The special value of the book lies in the full and concise description of the history, the inhabitants, and the religion of the province, and particularly its administration, produce, and trade. In the southern provinces the Chinese form of administra- : SCIENCE. [VoL, Sy Noe27a tion has now almost entirely superseded the Manchu, while in the province of Kirin both Chinese civil officials and Manchu military commandants are found. Inthe northern provinces, where Chinese immigrants are not so numerous as in southern Manchuria, the Manchu military officers still bear sway. In the region of the Long White Mountain no officials of any kind are found, but the inhabit- ants have formed themselves into guilds, —a very effective means of keeping their district free from brigands, which infest almost the whole province of Manchuria. The towns and villages are pro- tected from their ravages by walls. In discussing the taxation, the author mentions the general corruption of the authorities, and gives his opinion on the opium trade. He shows that opium is grown in many parts of Manchuria, even close by the highways, although its cultivation is prohibited by law. Therefore he thinks that the raid upon the Indian opium trade is out of place, as China can sup- ply her want of opium herself. This chapter of the book is one of the best, as the author, who is a member of the Civil Service of India, has evidently a thorough knowledge of the trade and com- merce and of the production of eastern Asia. In the description of his travels, which occupies the second half of the book, particular attention is paid to the produce of each part of the province, to the methods and facilities of trade, and to the dues collected from it. He describes the roads, which are for the most part practicable only in winter, when the swamps and bogs are frozen. Even the military roads are in a poor condition. The most interesting part of the journey was that in the Ch’ang-pai-shan, the Long White Mountain, which was known from descriptions of Chinese travel- lers and the Jesuits, who visited it in the beginning of last century. The mountains were said to attain a height of twelve thousand feet or more, but the measurements of Younghusband show that it is only eight thousand feet high. The sources of all important rivers of Manchuria are situated in these mountains; and it must be re- gretted that the travellers, on account of a scarcity of supplies, were unable to make a more accurate survey of this region. The description of the inhabitants, who have formed a small republic of their own, is very interesting. We described some of the observa- tions made by the travellers in this region in No. 245 of Sczence, according to a lecture delivered by James before the Royal Geo- graphical Society. In the present volume he details his experiences more fully, and his report is full of interesting facts. After leaving the Long White Mountain, the travellers turned northward, and visited Tsitsihar and many other places, their travels practically covering the whole region east of the line from the Gulf of Liao-Tung to Tsitsihar. The book, which is accompanied by a good map and numerous illustrations, forms a very valuable contribution to our knowledge of the present state of affairs in Manchuria, the author giving a vivid picture of all he has seen and heard during his inter- esting journey. A Manual of Analytical Chemistry, Qualitative and Quantita- tive, Inorganic and Organic. By JOHN MUTER. 3d ed. Philadelphia, Blakiston. $2. THE object of this work has been to produce a manual, short and easily understood, taking the student from the simplest to the most complex matters of qualitative analysis, and also dealing with quantitative work sufficiently to give him a fair insight into all branches of this department. It is adapted for students who desire to prepare for pharmaceutical, medical, or general university examinations in practical chemistry. The present edition has been considerably condensed in bulk, though a large amount of additional matter has been introduced. Muter’s analytical chemistry has always been a popular manual with teachers and students, and the improvements in this edition will make it still more acceptable. The Urine. Memoranda, Chemical and Microscopical, for Laboratory Use. By J. W. HOLLAND. Philadelphia, Blakis- ton. 12°. 50 cents. THIS manual deserves to be generally adopted in medical schools and by physicians. It contains the latest and best tests, and is well illustrated. In addition to the tests recommended, which are both chemical and microscopical, Dr. Holland gives, under the heading ‘Import,’ the bearing which the result of these tests has upon the diagnosis and treatment of the patient. For instance, after describing the various tests which may be employed for the detec- APRIL 6, 1888. | tion of urea, he says, “ As urea is highly soluble, it is never spon- taneously deposited. It varies in amount with different diseased conditions: e.g., in febrile and inflammatory affections it is in- creased in the forming stage, and diminished in that of defervesence ; in diabetes mellitus and simplex it is excessive in the urine; while in acute yellow atrophy of the liver it may be entirely absent. In acute and chronic Bright’s disease there may be a decided falling- off from the healthy proportion, causing a lower specific gravity. In such cases thereis more or less danger of uremia.” These clinical notes are well and concisely written, and increase the value of a book which is in all other respects excellent. NOTES AND NEWS. Dr. EMIL BESSELS, the eminent Arctic explorer, died suddenly on Saturday, March 31, at Stuttgart. His death was reported here on Monday, but not confirmed until Wednesday. He was well known to American scientists, as he lived in Washington after his return from the ‘ Polaris ’ expedition, of which he was a member. He died while in his native country, where he was about to publish a number of works. — The incessant endeavors of the Providence Franklin Society to organize a geographical survey of the State of Rhode Island have at last been successful. The Legislature of that State has voted a sum of five thousand dollars for a topographical survey, and ap- pointed a commission of three to contract for and superintend the work. Prof. Winslow Upton, Mr. Mills, and David W. Hoyt were appointed commissioners. — Th. Macfarlane, in the third ‘Bulletin of the Laboratory of the Inland Revenue Department of Canada, comments upon the adulteration of coffee in Canada. Among eighty-five samples col- lected in various cities of Canada, only forty-four, or fifty-two per cent, were genuine, while the rest were to a greater or less extent mixed with chiccory and roasted grain and peas. Among the samples occurred some described as “chiefly roasted grain with chiccory and a little coffee.” As these samples were bought by revenue Officers, it is probable that in reality the percentage of adulterated coffee is still greater than the above figures indicate. — Dr. Gotz Martius of the University of Bonn publishes a lecture upon the aims and results of experimental psychology, in which he makes a high claim for the admittance of this science to an ac- knowledged place upon the curriculum of every university. The immediate occasion of the address was to arouse an interest in this line of research among the members of the university at Bonn, and to urge the establishment of a laboratory where Professor Lipps, the well-known psychologist, and himself, can have the opportunity of contributing to the advance of this growing science. There are several indications that the leading educational institutions of this country will advocate a similar department in the near future. — The Imperial Observatory of Rio de Janeiro plans the publica- tion of a universal dictionary of climatology. For this purpose, the director, Mr. L. Cruls, has prepared and sent out a circular solicit- ing information from all official and private sources as to the climatic elements of places at which observations have been or are being carried on. A table is attached to the circular, in which the results of observations are to beinserted. The mean temperatures of the months of the year, the mean maxima and minima, humidity, days and amount of precipitation, cloudiness, frequency of gales, days of frost, prevailing winds, the absolute maxima and mini- ma, the mean annual barometric pressure, and the mean annual oscillation of the latter, are the points on which information is solicited. —Last summer Prof. B. W. Evermann of the State Normal School, Terre Haute, and Prof. O. P. Jenkins of De Pauw Univer- sity, spent their vacation at Guyamas, Mex., on the Gulf of Califor- nia, collecting fishes. They packed their specimens and shipped them for home, but they did not arrive until recently, having been lost somewhere. Professors Evermann and Jenkins will arrange the collection this summer, and prepare the results of their work for publication. —In Sczence for March 9, p. 119, Ist column, 5th line from bot- tom, for ‘homogeneous’ read ‘homonymous,’ for ‘image’ read ‘images,’ and for ‘it’ read ‘they.’ SCIEN CE. 169 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. Dr. Edward Tyson and the Doctrine of Descent. ONE of the things most strongly emphasized by the recent pub- lication of Charles Darwin’s letters is his conscientious recognition of the claims of others to the first discovery of either the law of descent with variation or the principle of natural selection. The pains he took to prefix to the later editions of his work on the origin of species an historical sketch, is evidence of his earnest desire to do full justice to all previous explorers in his field. He, however, did not consider it incumbent on him to look beyond the narrow circle of those who had distinctly and explicitly expounded a doc- trine of derivation. Nevertheless, for the future historian of scien- tific belief, the mere foreshadowings and beginnings of the modern idea of the origin of species, which Darwin set upon a firm basis of inductive proof, cannot but have an enduring interest and im- portance. In this view of the matter, I feel that I may perhaps claim space in your journal to call ‘attention to the work and writings of a man who does not seem to have been mentioned heretofore in connection with this subject, but who undoubtedly had at least a vague pre- sentiment of the coming theory of the descent of man, derived from anatomical investigations, which, even at the present time, would probably be regarded as skilful and exact. I refer to Dr. Edward Tyson, fellow of the Royal Society and of the College of Physicians,, and otherwise distinguished in his day as a man of learning and ability, who published, in 1699, his treatise entitled ‘ Orang-Outang, stve Homo Syluestris; or the Anatomy of a Pygmte compared with that of a Monkey, an Ape, and a Man. It is pleasing to observe in this book not only the carefulness with which Dr. Tyson traced the differences and resemblances. between the parts and organs of the little monkey brought to him from Africa and the homologous parts in the higher primates, par- ticularly man, but also the ingenuity and insight with which he drew inferences, which, if freed from the repressing influences of the seventeenth century, we can hardly doubt would have extended to the clear discernment and acceptance of the general law of devel- opment. The details of his anatomical comparisons thereis not room for here ; but some of his theoretical views may, I think, be referred to without exceeding proper limits. In the first place, he seems to have perceived, though dimly, the main basis of evolution ; for, amongst other similar reflections, he says, “I find there are intermediate Sfeczes of Bezngs between Vegetables and Animals, as the Zoophyta ; the Hzstory of which I could extreamly desire might be given us; and cant but think that regularly in compiling a Hzstory of Anxzmals, one should commence from them; and amongst these, no doubt, but that there are several degrees of Perfection, till we come to what might be properly called an Anzmal.” And in another place, with still more particularity, he tells us, ‘‘ Tis a true Remark, which we cannot make without Admiration; That from Minerals to Plants; from Plants to Ani- mals; and from Animals to Men; the Transition is so gradual, that there appears a very great Similitude, as well between the meanest Plant, and some Minerals; as between the lowest Rank of Men, and the highest kind of Animals. The Animal of which I have given the Anatomy, coming nearest to Mankind; seems the Nexus of the Animal and Rational.” As if it were not enough to thus skirt along the edge of the doc- trine of derivation, our author appears to have actually had a pro- phetic eye upon the great leader in the scientific renaissance of the: nineteenth century, when he exclaims that “it would be the Per- fection of Natural History, could it be attained, to enumerate and remark all the different Sfeczes, and their Gradual Perfectzons from one to another.’’ And with the same irresistible impulse which Darwin possessed, to philosophize as well as observe, he further on explains with reference to his own comparative survey of his pygmy with a monkey, an ape, and a man, that, “ by viewing the same Parts of all these together, we may the better observe Nature's Gradatzon in the Formation of Azzmal Bodies, and the: Transitions made from one to another.” It is interesting to observe, also, that Dr. Tyson not only antici- pated, in ameasure, the methods and conclusions of the Darwinian. period, but even, in some cases, made use of the very terms and, 170 phrases which we have come to associate with that period alone. ‘Thus he declares “that in this Chazz of the Creafzon, as an inter- mediate Link between an Afe and a Mam,” he would place his pygmy. Elsewhere, however, he cautiously explains that his pygmy “is no Man, nor yet the Common Ape; but a sort of Anzmal be- tween both; and tho’ a Bzfed, yet of the Quadrumanus-kind ; tho! some Jen too, have been observed to use their Fe? like Hands, as I have seen several.” In another place he gives it as his opinion that “ we may safely conclude, that Mature intended it a Bzped,” though he apparently feels bound to add the qualification, Ove Ul still chmnk it but a sort of A4fe and a meer Bruze.” In fact, all through his comparison he is careful to aver, that, while “our Pygmie more resembles a JZaz than Ages and Monkeys do where it differs, there ’tis like the Afe-kznd.” In the summary of the results of his dissections and comparisons, he gives tables of the particulars in which “the Orang-Outang, or Pygmie, more resembled a Man, than Apes and Monkeys do,” and of those in which “ the Orang-Outang, or Pygmie, differ’d from a Man, and resembled more the Ape and Monkey-kind.” The points -of resemblance to man he enumerates as forty-eight, and the points of difference as thirty-four. It is a curious fact that some of his points of similarity are the very ones that Darwin has made prom- inent by the attention which he has given to them. For example: Dr. Tyson refers to the form of the ears, in regard to which he says, “None could more resemble those of a Man than our Pygmie’s ; both as to the largeness, colour, shape, and structure. Here I ob- ‘served the Helix, Ant-Helix, Concha, Alvearium, Tragus, Antz- Tragus,and Lobus.” Like Darwin, too, he traces the rudimentary tail, “oh which he remarks, “‘ The Os Coccygzs had but four Bones, and these not perforated, as tis in JZax, In Monkeys there are more Sones, and they are perforated.” Darwin attaches impor- tance to the fact “that the hair on our arms tends to converge from cabove and below to a point at the elbow.” Dr. Tyson notices the same peculiarity, of which he remarks, “The tendency of the Hair -of all the Body was downwards ; but only from the Wrists to the Elbow ’twas upwards ; so that at the Elbow the Hair of the Shoul- -der and the Arm ran contrary to oneanother.”’ In his work on the descent of man, Mr. Darwin makes the fol- lowing statement: “It is notorious that man is constructed on the same general type or model with other mammals. All the bones in his skeleton can be compared with corresponding bones in a monkey, bat, or seal. So it is with his muscles, nerves, blood-ves- ‘sels, and internal viscera. The brain, the most important of all the organs, follows the same law, as shown by Huxley and other anat- -omists. Bischoff, who is a hostile witness, admits that every chief fissure and fold in the brain of man has its analogy in that of the ‘Orang; but he adds that at no period of development do their brains perfectly agree; nor could this be expected, for otherwise their mental powers would have been the same.” And now Dr. Tyson, after comparing all the bones in man’s skeleton with the corresponding bones in his monkey, and following the same process with the muscles, nerves, blood-vessels, and internal viscera, comes also to the organ of intelligence, regarding which he observes, “From what is generally received, viz. That the Brazz is reputed the more immediate Seat of the Soz/ itself; one would be apt to think that since there is so great a disparity between the Soz/ of a Man and a Brute, the Organ likewise in which ’tis placed should ‘be very different, too. Yet by comparing the Brazz of our Pygmze with that of a Maz, and, with the greatest exactness, observing each Part in both; it was very surprising to me to find so great a resemblance of the one to the other, that nothing could be more. So that when I am describing the Bvazz of our Pye me, you may justly suspect I am describing that of a Man, or may think that I might very well omit it wholly, by referring you to the accounts already given of the Anatomy of an Humane Brazn, for that will indifferently serve for our Pygmze, by allowing only for the magni- tude of the Parts in Jaz. Since therefore in all respects the Brain of our Pygmze does so exactly resemble a JZan's, I might here make the same Reflection the Parzszans did upon the Or- gans of Speech, That there zs no reason to think, that Agents do perform such and such Actions, because they are found with Or- gans proper thereunto; for then our Pygmze might be really a Man... . But those Wobler Facultzes in the Mind of Alan SCIENCE: [Vor. XI. No. 270 must certainly have a higher Principle; and Matter organized could never produce them; for why else, where the Organ is the same, should not the Ac¢zons be the same too; and if all depended on the Organ, not only our Pygmie, but other Brutes likewise, would be too near akin to us.” CHARLES F. Cox. New York, April 2. Temperature of the Saco River. THE monthly mean in the table is based on daily observations of the temperature of the running water at Saco, Me., at the head of the lower falls, about four miles from the mouth of the river. This river is about one hundred miles in length, and has its source in the Notch of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Flowing nearly in a south-easterly direction, it reaches the sea in latitude 43° 27’, the total fall being about 1,900 feet. On the gth of December, 1837, nearly the whole of the water was stopped during the night by anchor-ice, which gradually disappeared, and the full flow of the river was restored at about eleven o’clock A.M. Mean Montuty. TEMPERATURE. et 5 a 3 i > | @ > tb 2 23 | > 3 SS |e )2)s)2)4 | = |< Sus: | Seanie — "cori careless —— | | ——— 1837|32.00°/32.007/32.00°|36.63°|50.19° 63.77° 2| 1838|32.00 |32.00 |32.00 |43 07 |53.26 |67.60 bs. 45 |72-71 |63.20 |49.8r (36. 87 CS 00 | | 54-32 | | 71.39° 68. pie +53°\49.87° 36. 57° [32 39° 56.78 |62.53 a 40 |67.42 ba 80 3932-20 32-00 (33° 52 |46.23 (No observations were made in November and December, 1839). Year. Maximum. | Minimum. | Range. ean ae eee pte | (ee 1837 July 19 73° | Dec. 9 | 32° | 4r° 1838 a RT 76 | Nov. 25 | 32 | 44 1839 “29 76 | Dec. 18 32 I 44 1837, SOLID LINE; 1838, BROKEN LINE; 1839, DOTTED LINE. At a recent meeting of the British Association it was decided that observations be made on the temperature of the rivers and lakes of Great Britain. The results thus obtained will be of great value, and will depend on a great variety of causes, among which are the time of exposure to sunlight, the temperature of the earth and the air, the cooling effect of evaporation, the barometric press- ure with reference to evaporation, also the effect of the wind in its direction and force, the rapid or gradual melting of snow in the valleys, the turbid or clear condition of the water as to its effect on surface radiation, the exposure of the water to the air at falls and rapids, and the length of time that the surface is covered with ice. JOHN M. BATCHELDER, Cambridge, Mass., March 9. ApriL 6, 1888. | Calendar of Societies. Anthropological Society, Washington. March 20.— Lester F. Ward, Social and Economic Paradoxes ; Edward I. Peters, Ob- servations on the Theory of Rent. Biological Society, Washington. March 24, — Cooper Curtice, Tenia fimbriata, a New Parasite of Sheep ; Charles Hallock, Re- version of Domesticated Animals to a Wild State ; J. W. Collins. The Work of the Schooner *Grampus’ in Fish-Culture. Philosophical Society, Washington. March 31.—C. V. Riley, Some Recent En- tomological Matters of International Concern ; H. A Hazen, Two Balloon Voyages ; Thomas Russell, Baudin Vertical Minimum Thermome- ter & Marteau; C. O. Boutelle, Geodetic Azi- muths. Boston Society of Natural History. April 4. —Samuel Wells, Life of the late Richard C. Greenleaf ; Robert T. Jackson, The Development of the Oyster, with Remarks on Allied Genera. Purdue Scientific Socicty, Lafayette, Ind. March t9. —L. S. Thompson, The Place of Art in Education; W.S. Windle, The Rose- Leaf Spot (Actinomea Rose); F. W. Brady, The Westinghouse Air- Brake. Engineers’ Club, St. Louis. 21.—S. F. Burnet, Cements and E. L. Corthell, Inter-oceanic Ship March Mortar ; ‘Transfer. Publications received at Editor’s Office, March 12-31. AMERICAN Legion of Honor Magen Vol. I. No. 1. March, 1888. Palmyra, N.Y., F. G. Crandall. 16 p. ge Barroit, G. Il Tabu. Firenze, Tipografia dell’arte dellaStampa. 32p. 12°. Bonar, J., ed. Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus, 1810-23. Oxford, Clarendon Pr. 251p. 8°. $2.7 ‘Canapa, Annual Rot of the Department of the Inte- rior, "of the Dominion of, for the year 1887. Ottawa, Government. 8°. ‘CHAMBERLAIN, M. A Systematic Table of Canadian Birds. St. John, N.B, The Author. 14p. f°. Howe tts, W. D. Indian Summer. Boston, Ticknor. 395 p- 16°. socents. Hussett. W. The Great Amherst Mystery. A True Narrative of the Supernatural. New York, Bren- tano’s. 168 p. 12°. 25 cents. James, H. E.M. The Long White Mountain; or, a Journey in Manchuria. London and New York, Longmans, Green, & Co. 5020 8° $6. Kine, T. Haschisch. A Novel. New York, Brentano’s. 314 p. 16°. 50 cents. Kiemm, L.R. Chips froma Teacher’s Workshop. Bos- ton, Lee & Shepard. 408 p. 16° KNEELAND, S. Volcanoes and Earthquakes. Boston, Lothrop. 2209p. 8°. Prestwicu J. Geology, Chemical, Physical, and Strati- graphical. Vol. II Stratigraphical and Physical. Oxford, Clarendon Pr. 606 p. 8°. RapciirFre, C. B. Behind the Tides. York, Macmillan. 65 p. 8°. Reep, H. A Photography applied to Surveying. New York, Wiley. 68p. 4°. $250. RICKETTS, P. de P., and RussE.t, S. H. Skeleton Notes upon Ynorganie Chemistry. "Part I. Non-metallic Elements. New York, Wiley. 29 p. 12°. $t.50. Sotpan, F. L. Grube’s Method of teaching Arithmetic explained. Chicago and Boston, Interstate Publ. Co. 66p. 12°. Tuurston, R. H. Design, Construction, and Operation. Wiley. 671 p. 8°. $6. University of the State of New York, Proceedings of the Twenty-fifth Convocation of the, "held July 5, 6,and 7, 1887. Troy, Troy Pr. Co. 232 p. 8°. Upton, W., and Rotcnu, A. L. Meteorological Observa- tions during the Solar Eclipse, Aug. 19, 1887, made at Chlamostino, Russia. Ann Arbor, Mich., Register Publ. House. 25 p. 8°. Vetscuow. F. A. The Natural Law of Relation between Rainfall and Vegetable Life, and its Application to Australia. London, Edward Stanford. 4op. 12°. 1 shilling. GERMAN SIMPLIFIED SPANISH SIMPLIFIED The following will be found eminently practical for self-instruction: (1.) German Simplified—Complete in 12 numbers (with keys) $1.20. (2) Spanish Simplified— 12 numbers (with keys) ro cts. each; No, 7 now ready ; anewnumber on the first of every month. Sold by all booksellers. Sent, postpaid, on receipt of price, by Prof. A. Knoflach, 140 Nassau St., New York. London and New A Manual of Steam-Boilers: their New York, SCIDINGE: 111 SCIENCE CLUBBING RATES. a % DISCOUNT. 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Sele) |}o15 0 4e30l ne 25c Springfield Republican “(weekly).. 1.00] 4.25] 2.2 Sunday School Times.............-- 2.00, 4.80] 3.0C Teachers’ Institute... I.25| 4.c5| 2.2 Texas Siftings..... 4.00; 6.80] 5.0¢ ‘Treasure-Trove.....- I.00} 4.25] 2 25 Truth Seeker, The.. 35c9| 5.80] 4-00 Wide Awake ...... .. 2.40| 5 20] 3.40 Voung Folks’ Journal..............- I.00| 4.25] 2.25 N. D. C. HODGES, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. Amusements of New York. YCEUM THEATRE. DANIEL FROHMAN............ ..... Manager. Cor. 4th Avenue and 23d St. JUEOS, WUE, A New Play by D. Berasco and H. C. Dr Mitte. Preceded by............Editha’s Burglar. Evenings, 8:15, Saturday Matinees 2 ADISON-SQUARE THEATRE. MR. A. M. PALMER, Sole Manager. Evenings at 8:30. Saturday matinée at 2. THE LONDON COMEDY SUCCESS, HEART OF HEARTS. HEART OF HEARTS. By Henry Arthur Jones, suthon of ‘* The Silver Kiag, c. ALLACK’S. THIRD WEEK. Under the direction of Mr. HENRY E. ABBEY MARCH 23, MON HY - MON HY. Evenings, at 8:15. Matinée Saturday at 2:15. ASINO. Broadway and 39th St. Evenings at 8. Matinee Saturday at 2. THE BRIGHTEST, MERRIEST, AND MOST EN- JOYABLE COMIC OPERA EVER PRESENTED, AS PERFORMED NEARLY 700 TIMES. ERMINIE. RECEIVED WITH ROARS OF LAUGHTER. ROADWAY THEATRE. BROADWAY, 41ST-ST., AND 7TH-AV. Manazersereiecce ares Mr. FRANK W. SANGER. Acknowledged by the ENTIRE PRESS THE HANDSOMEST THEATRE IN THE CITY. Practically Fire-proof, Thoroughly Comfortable, Perfectly Ventilated, Best Constructed, and SAFEST THEATRE IN THE WORLD. EVERY EVENING and SATURDAY MATINEE. FANNY DAVENPORT. IN VICTORIEN SARDOU’S MASTERPIECE, LA TOSCA. BOX OFFICE OPEN FROMo A.M. to 10 P.M. Boxes, $12, $10, $8. Orchestra stalls, $1.50 Orchestra circle, $1.50 and $1. Balcony, $1.50 and $1. Gallery, 50 and 35 cents. Admission, 50 cents. CADEMY...... Gago0%e0 GILMORE & TOMKINS, CADEMY................ Proprietors and Managers. MARCH 21, Bandmann, “ Jekyll and Hyde.” 25, 50, 75C-, $1+00, ALY’S THEATRE, Broadway and 30th St. Under the management of Mr. AUGUSTIN DALY. Orchestra, $1.50. Dress Circle, $1. Second Balcony, soc. EVERY EVENING at 8:15. MATINEES begin at 2. EVERY NIGHT at 8:15, production of Shakspeare’s comedy in five acts, ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream, by AUGUSTIN DALY. MATINEES WEDNESDAYS and SATURDAYS. SEAN ARD THEATRE. Broadway and 33d st. 97TH TIME. LAST WEEK. STEELE MACKAYE IN PAUL KAUVAR. *,*Thursday, March 29, 100th and souvenir night. OCKSTADER’S THEATRE, Dockstader, Shepard & Graus, Proprietors. FOURTH WEEK Crowded Houses. A Success. Without Doubt. CORINNE IN ARCADIA. Reserved Seats, 25, 50, 75, $1. EVENINGS, 8:15 Matinee’ WED. AND SAT. AT 2. *,*In preparation, MONTE CRISTO, JR FEDEN MUSEE. 23d St., “between 5th and 6th Ave. Open from rr to rr. Sunday, 1 to rr. New Groups, New Paintings, New Attractions. ERDELYI NACZI. and his HUNGARIAN ORCHESTRA. CONCERTS FROM 3to5 AND 8 torr. Second exhibition of Paintings now open. Admission to all, 50 cents. Children 25 cents, Ajeeb, the Mystifying Chess Automaton. SCIENGE. [ Vor) xh “Nop 27a Used by Gasca of first. class Manufacturers and Mechanics ontheir best work. Its success has brought a lot of imitators copying us ane every way possible. Remember that THE ONLY 'g ENUINE LePage’s Liquid Gine is manufactured ee by the RUSSIA CEMENT C0 GLOUCESTER, MASS v2 Sample by mail 20c! stamps. These glues are used in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington for all its work of mounting speci- mens—by the Government Arsenals and Department Buildings, by the Pullman Palace Car Co., Mason & Hamlin Organ and Piano Co., and by thousands of first-class manufacturers and mechanics throughout the world, for all kinds of fine work. Pronounced STRONGEST ADHESIVE KNOWN. Sold in tin cans for mechanics and amateurs, and in bottles for family use. 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HODGES, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. a AMATEUR THOTO: —— i : reo 7 aed} FAIRY s DETECTIVE }¥ © CAM MERAS- = TILESTON & HOLLINGSWORTH, 64 Federal Street, Boston. Manufacturers of Fine Book Papers for let- ter press and cut printing. The attention of publishers and printers is called to our Ivory Finish (no gloss) paper. A boon to studious men, reflecting no dazzling glare injurious to the eyes. Approved and used by the best educa- tional publishers in the country. GUSTAV Bao CHE Rar 828 Broadway, New York. Importer of Scientific Books and Periodicals. Branches: Leipzig, Hospital Str. 16 ; Lon- don. 26 King William Str.. Strand. BRAN CHAT 728: CHESTNUT E STi OS PHIEADELPHIA: PAr: TNGRAVING SG = JOHN HASTINGS = Prest. P= 2 a # us an order for periodicals exceeding| eI cH $ro, counting each atits full price. n é American Agriculturist.........-..- $1.50/$ 4.30/$ 2.50 American Analyst Bddo6009000 000800 I.00| 4.25| 2.25 American Architect and Building News. 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I.00| 4.25] 2.25 Century Magazine..... 4.00} €.80] 5.00 Chautauquan, The ... s+e-] 1.50] 4 30] 2.50 Christian Union, The............-- 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Christian Weekly, Illustrated....... 2.50] 5-30] 3.50 Cosmopolitan, The .00} 4 80| 3.00 (GH Css00s000 basa600 6 5.80} 4.00 Doctor eee eee -00| 4.80] 3.00 Eclectic Magazine.. J 7.80) 6.00 Edinburgh Review... -00] 6.80] 5.00 Electrical World.. . : 5-80] 4.00 Electrician and Electrical Engineer-| 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Electrical Review.....---++++s+eeees 300] 5.80] 4.00 Engineering and Mining Journal 4.00] 6.80} 5.00 English Illustrated WR edo 1.75| 4-55| 2-75 Family Story Paper (N.Y.)......---| 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 Forest and Stream........-.-.+-++++ 4.00/ 6.80} 5.00 Borumy eDhe) eee ieleieieeaie sisieie eee = 5.00] 7-80] 6.00 Godey’s Lady’s Book......--.+++--- 2.00} 4.80] 3.00 Harper’s Bazar........---.0+2--+0+- 4.00! 6.80] 5.00 Harper’s Magazine.........-.-++--+ 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 Harper’s Weekly.....-..----++---+ 4 00] 6.80] 5.00 Harper’s Young People..........--. 2.00] 4.80! 3.00 Health and Home.... I.00| 4-25] 2.25 Herald of Health.......--..-.---+-- I.00] 4.25| 2.25 Illustrated London News (Amer YEPFiNt).. 1-2-0... eee e eee eeeee eens 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 Independent, ‘The. 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 Inter Ocean, The. I.00| 4.25] 2.25 Iron Age (weekly) 4.50] 7-30| 5.50 Journal of Philology (ng) sqqasued 2.50| 5.30] 3.50 Journal of Speculative Philosophy (begins with Jan. No.)........-++- 3.00} 5.80] 4.00 Judge noooocdoons000000000 elele)ele[-i/=)a\« 4.00] 6.80] 5.00 L’ Art. 5 denopnscanDocd! 12.00 14.80] 13.00 ING) Gog S0a00n codadoooeoneaucogeDsoD| 5-00} 7.80} 6.00 Lippincott’s Mag: 3.00} 5.80] 4.00 Littell’s Living Age.... 8.00] 10.80] 9.00 Little Men and Women I.00| 4.25) 2.25 London Quarterly...... 4.00) 6.80] 5.00 Macmillan’s Magazine........ --| 3.00] 5.80) 4 00 Magazine of American History. oa590 5.00) 7.80} 6.00 Medical and Surgical Journal......- | 5.00] 7.80) 6.00 Mechanical Engineer............--- 2.00} 4.80] 3.00 Metal Worker....... dl 4.25| 2.25 Microscope, The.. 4-25| 2.25 Natures aiiclestelclee'sieleteialele J 8.80) 7.00 New Princeton Review J 5.80) 4.00 North American Review.........-.. 5.00| 7.80] 6.00 Outing Meorisececeseis seieieisestersieislel= 3.00] 5.80! 4.00 Overland Monthly.........-.-..... 4.00] 6.80} 5.00 EEN) oda!) Job6b0 cadsse Pilenelei-(s|(eX-OO| tarde 2 52k 2s Political Science Quarterly. sleleielaisi*\0]s 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Popular Science Monthly.........-. 5-00] 7.80] 6.00 Popular Science News.......-..+++- 1.00] 4.25) 2.25 Portfolio, The........-. da 7-50| 10.30} 8.50 Practitioner..... G6 beooudeacooLas 3-50| 6.30] 4.50 RublickOpinionwecmecseeiasckciies 3-00] 5.80] 4.00 DUCK ate tetieictclelefoiciseteletsleleleie\el=[ai=i=l=]° 5-00} 7.80) 6.00 Puck (German) égouseodeesoneccodoud 5-00| 7 80] 6.00 Quarterly Review (London)......... 4.00; 6.80] 5.00 Mtleriesteeeeceietaciee alse 1.00] 4.25] 2.25 Rural New-Yorker. 2.00| 4.80] 3.00 St. Nicholas... | 3.00| 5.80] 4.00 School Journal . | 2.50] §.30] 3.50 Scientific Americ | 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Supplement..... 5.00] 7.80] 6.00 Architect and Bui 2.50, 5.30| 3.50 Scribner’s Magazine 3.00] 5.80] 4.00 Southern Cultivator I.50| 4.30] 2.52 Springfield Republican (weekly)....| 1-00) 4.25} 2.2© Sunday School Times............... 2.00] 4.80} 3.0c Teachers’ Institute............. ... I.25| 4.¢5| 2.25 MexAs oie tingSerecetlstelaisleleieealeleiietels 4.00| 6.80] 5.0c Treasure-Trove..-....--..+2--- -.--| 4.00] 4.25] 2 25 Truth Seeker, The. J 5.80] 4.00 Wide Awake....... .. 5 20] 3.40 Young Folks’ Journal 4.25| 2-25 N. D. C. 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Practically Fire- proof, Thoroughly Comfortable, Perfectly Ventilated, Best Constructed, and SAFEST THEATRE IN THE WORLD. EVERY EVENING and SATURDAY MATINEE. FANNY DAVENPORT. IN VICTORIEN SARDOU’S MASTERPIECE, LA TOSCA. BOX OFFICE OPEN FROMg A.M. to 10 P.M. Boxes, $12, $ro, $8. Orchestra stalls, $1.50. Orchestra circle, $1.50 and $1. Balcony, $1.50 and $r. Gallery, 50 and 35 cents. Admission, 50 cents. IBLO’S. Reserved Seats, Orchestra Circle and Balcony, soc. SECOND AND LAST WEEK. BOLOSSY KIRALFY’S DOLORES. DOLORES. Two new ballets, led by Mile. Paris. Matinees Wednesday and Saturday. Next week—Rice’s beautiful EVANGELINE. DA’ S THEATRE, Broadway and 3oth St. Under the management of Mr. AUGUSTIN DALY. Orchestra, $1.50. Dress Circle, $1. Second Balcony, soc. EVERY EVENING at 8: 1s. MATINEES begin at 2. AND HER LONDON COMEDY COMPANY. TANDARD THEATRE. Broadway and 33d st. J.C. DUFF, Menaners TWO WEEKS ONLY. J.M. HILL’S Union-Square Theatre Company. 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Spectacles, Eye Glasses, Opera and Marine Glasses, etc. Illustrated Price List mailed fvee to any ad- dress. Mention SCIENCE in corresponding with us. DRESS TRIMMINGS. JAMES McGREERY & 60. wish to announce that they are now displaying on their retail counters their entire importation of Dress Trimmings, comprising full lines of Jet Passementeries, Ornament Gimps, Panel Gimps and Fringes, Persian Band Trim- ming, Metal Embroidered Gal- loons, Changeable Tinsel Trim- mings, Black and Colored Mohair and Silk Braid Trimmings, Mourning Trimmings, Colored Metal Embroidered Panels, Beaded Grenadines, Garnitures, Embroidered ‘‘ Tulle’’ Draperies, Buttons, Notions, and Small Wares. Dress-Makers’ Findings a specialty. Ribbons, Parasols, and Sun Umbrellas. Wholesale and Retail. Special attention given to mail orders. JAMES McCREERY & C0. BROADWAY AND ELEVENTH ST,, NEW YORK. KIMBALL’S SATIN STRAIGHT CUT CIGARETTES. People of refined taste who desire exceptionally fine cigar- ‘ ettes should use only our STRAIGIILT CUT, put up in satin packets and boxes of 10s. 20s. 50s, and Toos. 14 FIRST PRIZE MEDALS. WM. S. KIMBALL & CO. 7COOD NEW To LADIES. ¥ a) ure: catest inducements ever of- fered. Now's your time to get up orders for our celebrated Yeas and Coffees, and secure a beautiful Gold Band or Moss Rose China Tea Set, Dinner Set, Oss tose Toilet Set, Watch, Brass L amp, e e etionary. For full particulars address TRIE: “GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO., “ P. O. Box 289. 81 and 33 Vesey St., New York a Sample br mail 20c? stamps. These glues are used in the Smithsonian Institute at Washington for all its work of mounting speci- mens—by the Government Arsenals and Department Buildings, by the Pullman Palace Car Co., Mason & Hamlin Organ and Piano Co., and by thousands of first-class manufacturers and mechanics throughout the world, for all kinds of fine work. Pronounced STRONGEST ADHESIVE KNOWN. Sold in tin cans for mechanics and amateurs, and in bottles for family use. The total quantity sold between Jan., 1880, and Jan., 1885, in all parts of the world amounted to over 32 MILLION BOTTLES. Be sure and get the genuine LePage’s made only by RUSSIA CEMENT Co. KIMBALL’S SATIN STRAIGHT CUT CIGARETTES. People of refined taste who desire exceptionally fine cigar- eltes should use only our STRAIGIIT CUT, put up in satin packets and boxes of TOs. 20s. 50s. and 100s. 14 FIRST PRIZE MEDALS. WM. S. KIMBALL & CoO. mCOOD NEWS To LADIES. Soo “areatest inducements ever of- fered. Now’s your time to get Wy orders for our celebrated Yeas and Coffees, and secure fi a beautiful Gold Band or Moss Rose China Tea Set, Dinner Set, Gold and Moss Rose Toilet Set, Watch, Brass Lamp, or Webster's Rare For full particulars address THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO., P.O. Box 289. 81 and 83 Vesey St., New Lork. W. H. WALMSLEY & 60. SUCCESSORS TO R. & J. BECK, 1016 Chestnut Street, Phila, Microscopes and_ all Accessories and Ap- paratus. Photograph- ic and Photo-Micro- graphic Apparatus and Outfits. Spectacles, Eye Glasses, Opera and Marine Glasses, etc. Illustrated Price List mailed free to any ad- dress. Mention SCIENCE in corresponding with us. Tee 5: FAIRY: AND - 2) BEPGNE AMERaS: he Travelers Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn., organized 1864, issues both Life Policies and Accident Policies. Only large accident company in America, Only $5 a year to professional and business men for each $1,000 insurance, with $5 weekly indemnity. Has paid policy-holders nearly $11,000,000. All policies non-forfeitable. All claims paid, without discount, and immediately on receipt _ of satisfactory proof. Which Cyclopedia? It is generally admitted that a good Cyclopedia is a desirable pos- session for every home. As to which Cyclopedia is the best for popular use, the “ Doctors disagree.” Evidently the matter of choice should de- pend somewhat upon the use for which it is intended. A customer of Atprn’s Manirotp Cyctorrp1a writes to the publisher as follows : ‘“T have been exhibiting the Manifold among my acquaintances, and expatiating on its excellence and wonderful cheapness. Among those to whom I have shown the volumes, I found but one young man who did not need the Manifold. He has a cyclopedia ; a number of large volumes; he did not know how many, nor did he know the name of the editor or publisher; but they are very large, heavy vol- umes, Believing hedid not frequently consult them, I asked if he ever used them. “** Certainly,’ said he, ‘ I use them every day.’ “¢¢ What can you possibly do with them ?’ too Why, L press my trousers with them.’ “««My dear sir,’ said I, ‘you do not need the Manifold. Mr. Alden publishes books for the purpose of improving the intellect, and not to give shape to the legs. Do you stick to your ponderous, unwieldly volumes : they are well adapted to the purpose for which you use a cyclopedia ; but the dainty volumes of the Manifold —how delightful to handle, and how beautiful to behold—are made with a view to ease of reference and convenience of consultation, and cannot be successfully con- verted into a substitute for trousers’s stretchers.”--EDWARD EBERBACH, Washington. The fifth volume of AtpEen’s Manirotp Cyctopepra, which has just been published, more than sustains the good reputation of the previous 3 O V | issues, being, especially, more O umes full in its vocabulary, and thie entire workmanship, both literary and mechanical, being of a higher grade. It is certainly not only a wonderfully cheap, but a thoroughly excellent Cyclopedia for almost any conceiv able use except that of a “trousers’s press.” The publisher will F $ 8 8 5 send specimen pages free to any O r x applicant, or.specimen volumes may be ordered and returned if not wanted—50 cents for cloth, 65 cents for half Morocco ; postage, 10c. teduced rates are offered to early purchasers ; the price for the set of 30 vols., cash being received before May 1, 1888, being only $8.85 for the cloth; 15 cents a volume extra for half Morocco; postage as above. The Literary Revolution Catalogue (84 pages) sent free on application. ALDEN's publications are NOT sold by book-sellers—no discounts except to Stockholders. Books sent for examination before payment, satisfactory reference being given. JOHN B. ALDEN, Publisher, NEW YORK: 895 Pearl St.; P. O. Box 1227, CHICAGO: Lakeside Building, Clark and Adams Sts. No. 272 TILESTON & HOLLINGSWORTE, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 64 Federal Street, Boston. Manufacturers of Fine Book Papers for let- ter press and cut printing. The attention of publishers and printers is called to our Ivory Finish (no gloss) paper. A boon to studious men, reflecting no dazzling glare injurious to the eyes. Approved and used by the best educa- tional publishers in the country, | Courses of instruction will be given in the > following {| subjects during the summer vacation of 1888 | Botany, Chemistry, Hrench. German, GeclosraEtetaeee | Physics, Physical Training, Topography. For information apply to the Secretary of Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. | FOR SALE at a bargain. a complete set of Watts’ | Dictionary of Chemistry, 9 vols., including the last sup- plement. ES -H.S BAILEY, University of Kansas. Lawrence, Kan. «“ CALICGRAPH WRITING WIACHINE Price, $85.00 It Stands at the Head! 20,000 in daily Use. For printed matter, etc., address —:PHE MOST:— Practical, Durable and Rapid WRITING MACHINE FOR THE Office, Library, and Family. THE AMERICAN WRITING MACHINE CO., New York Branch, 237 Broadway. HARTFORD, CONN. SrxtH YEAR. ° SINGLE CopiEs, TEN CENTS. Vou. XI. No. 273. NEW YORK, APRIL 27, 1888. $3.50 PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE. Entered at New York Post-Office as Second-Olass Mail-Matter. Editorial 195 | Health Matters. The National Academy Meeting, anal the Enthusiasm shown. Portagiousness of Consumption : 0 201 — Death of Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew. | Meeting of the National Academy of Sciences. | Book-Reviews. The Hypothesis of Potential | Bay 196 The Nervous System and the Mind . 6 ZO? Serpent-Mound 196 Beitrage zur Geophysik ¢ y 6 F 5 203, A New Aerobioscope 197 | Lhe Geological History of Plants . . 203) The Systematic Relation of Platypsyllus as determined by the | Yankee Girls in Zulu Land . : : » 203 Larva . 5 197 | Trish Wonders 9 - 203 The Orbits of Nerolites : 198 | A Manual of German Prefixes and Suffixes Fe ‘ . 204 Spectrum Photography and the Spectrum of Carbon 198 | Principles and Practice of Morality : - , 204 Vertebrate Fauna of the Puerco Series 198 | A History of Political Economy : : . : oo An Ethnographical Collection from Alaska ree O8 VOTES ; ; adie anual of Physiology . 0 9 : 5 Boy Mental Science. &.B. 198 Education in Bavaria z 0 i 5 204 The Mental Powers of Insects 4 ‘ 199 Outlines of Practical Physiology ‘ 5 205, The Function of the Cerebrum in the Dog : 200 | Manual of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Chemistry . ; 205 A Suggestion for the ‘ Telepathic’ Theory 200 Electrical Science. | NOES ang News re Cost of Electrical Distribution by Transformers and Secon- | Letters to the Editor. dary Batteries . 200 | Formation of the Explosive Chloride of Nitrogen by Electroly- Advantages of Electricity for Railroad-Work 5) | Pe!) || sis ; : William B. Hale 206 Electric Phenomena provoked by Radiation 5 . 201 | Indian Graves W.M. Beauchamp 206 The Science Company, Publishers, 47 Lafayette Place, New York. G. E. Stechert, 26 King William St., Strand. London agent - Revolutionary Shorthand Book. “EXACT PHONOGRAPHY; A System with CONNECTIBLE STROKE VOWEL SIGNS,” by Geo. R. Bishop, Stenographer of N.Y. Stock Exchange, member (and in 1883 President) N.Y. State Stenogr’rs’ Ass’n, &c. Complete Text-Book, — adapted to SELF- INSTRUCTION, —of a REVOLU- TIONARY SYSTEM, that discards the indefinite (vow- el) part of the common phonography, and secures, by a radical innovation, EXACTNESS with BREVITY. Specially adapted to Legal and other Technical work. A phonographic author writes of it: — ‘* On technical mat- ter, you are ahead of any form of Pitman’s phonog- raphy. ” The author claims equal superiority on cos- mon, nonosyllabic words, SHARPLY and SURELY DISTINGUISHING and WITHOUT SACRIFICE of BREVITY. where the old phonography makes no dis- tinction. A MODERN WORK, ADAPTED to MOD- ERN REQUIREMENTS, Five pp. Latin Law Max- ims, in shorthand, illustrate its adaptation to various lan- guages. Of 260 pp., 222 are engraved, — illustrating all principles with unprecedented fulness. E. D, EASTON, Washington, D,C., official Stenographer in Star Route and Guiteau trials, says of the work: *‘Am satisfied that by the system therein so fully set out, stu- dents may learn to wnite shorthand with greater certainty and precision than by any of the older systems.’ ISAAC S. DEMENT, Chicago, Speed Contestant at N.Y. State Stenogr’rs’ Ass’n meeting, 1887, says: ‘‘ You have certainly captured the prize on Zegid7Zity.”” THEO. C. ROSE, inert Supreme Court Stenog’r, El- mira, N.Y.,says: ‘‘ I think itis a great improvement in the art Pie vetahie and will be largely adopted by the knights of the lively quill.” W. H, SLOCUM) official Supreme Court Stenog’r, Buffalo, says: ‘* Must comnepaninleie you on your success in pro- ducing to the world a veasonadle system of shorthand,’’ and ‘J think the fraternity owe you their hearty thanks for the able manner in which you, have demonstrated the feasibility of exact phonography.”’ E. E, HORTON, Toronto, official Stenog’r to High Court of Justice, Ontario, says: “‘ The extent to which Exact Phonography admits of the application of the ¢xpedient of phrase- writing, with easy and natural joinings, is something remarkable.’ OWEN FITZSIMONS, Law Stenog’r, with Burrill, Za- briskie & Burrill, N.Y., says: ‘‘ Have compared some of the reading exercises at the end of your book with the same matter written according to the Pitmanand Munson systems, and while the latter have nothing the better of yee in point of brevity, Definiteness is entirely on your side. Price, bound in flexible leather, $2. Circulars sent. Address GEO. R. BISHOP, N.Y. Stock Exchange N.Y. City, JOHNSON’S UNIVERSAL CYCLOPADIA is a whole library of universal knowledge from the and pens of the ablest scholars in Am a Europe. It is accepted as high auf leading colleges. It is not for Appletons’s, the Britannica, or the Interna- but for all. It has just been thoroughly re vised at a cost of over $66,000, and three years’ labor by forty editors, and over 2,000 renowned contributors. It is in eight convenient sized volumes. No father can give to his child at school or his son or daughter just entering the arena of life anything that will be of more per- manent benefit. It is an education supplemen- tary to that of the schools. JOHNSON’s is now the latest by more than ro years. Address for particulars and terms, A. J. JOHNSON & CO. 11 Great Jones Street, NEW YORK. From Rev. Thos. Hill, LL.D., Ex-Presi- dent of Harvard University. I cheerfully and strongly recommend JOHN- son’s UNIVERSAL CYCLOPA:DIA as a. most con- venient and trustworthy work of reference. It not only gives us new matter up to the latest discoveries, but is revised with scrupulous care —- even those articles which seem perfect. It is the best for general use with which I am ac- quainted, and I have them all. JOHNSON’S contains the latest acquisitions of science, and may be trusted to give nothing but the best- established and accepted views of scientific men. BLACK SILKS. AMES McGREERY & C0. ace on sale, Wednes- 87 e 25th inst., a very ieee stock of Fine BLACK SILKS (principally the manufacture of B. J. Bonnet & Co.) at a very marked REDUCTION in PRICES. The newest and most ap- proved Weaves are repre- sented in all qualities We respectfully invite an examination. Samples sent on application. BROADWAY AND ELEVENTH ST,, NEW YORK. AUTOGRAPH LETTERS. Levers of Rare and Standard Books are now embellish- ing them with autographs of the authors, and of distin- guished persons mentioned therein. Others are forming collections of the letters themselves. I can furnish gen- uine letters of any celebrity of the past four hundred years. Send forasample copy of The Collector, which contains my lists. WALTER R. BENJAMIN, 28 WEST 23D STREET, NEW YorRK CITY. The largest dealer in America. SGIEINGE- [Vot. XI. No. 273 HA J-B i ©e ENTIRELY NEW EDITION CHAMBERS'S ENCYCLOPEDIA A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge. Edited and published under the auspices of W, & R. CHAMBERS, Edinburgh, AND J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, Philadelphia, Revised, Rewritten, New Illustrations and Maps. (Cloth...... $3.00 PRICE Cloth, uncut. 3.00 PER VUL. | : : -.2 4.00 rocco 45U VOLUME I. JUST ISSUED. PRESS NOTICES. “‘In learning, accuracy, and scholarly character the work stands on the highest plane and in the first rank.""— NV. ¥. Independent. **TIn literary merit and style as well as in its adaptation to the average inquirer, it 18 incomparably the very best and cheapest Encyclopedia for popular reference.”’— Bos- ton Globe, ««There can be no doubt that Ohambers’s Encyclopadia ig by all means the best one that has ever been published.”’ —Boston Traveller. ‘« A work that is in every particular worthy of the greatest admiration and praise.’’—Rochester Union and Advertiser, “*Tt 1s a great deal more than a revised edition; as a mat- ter of fact it is almost an entire new work.’—London Pub- lishers’ Circular. **A concise, accurate, and low-priced Encyclopedia. made better than ever by a thorough revision, pracvically amounting to a complete rewriting.”,—V. ¥. Examiner “«This 1s really the book for the people, and there is not a household in the country in which education is properly valued where one can aftord to do without a work of this kind, No book beside the Bible and the handy dictionary can be said to be more important.’’— Boston Herald, **A perfect Encyclopedia, accurate and artistically ex- cellent ’—Bristol Western Press, England, “So much of excellence do we discover in looking through this one volume that we shall await the appearance of the others with some impatience. Chambers’s Encyclo- peedia, in its new edition, will be the best English book of the kind, and for general use much more valuable than the enormous, ponderous, but unsatisfactory Encyclopedia Britannica.”’— Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. “Tt willbe a welcome guest in every household where any one wants to know Who’s who, or What’s what.”—N. Y¥. Publishing World. “*No more striking illustration of the rapid progress in science and art and of the additions that have been made, even to our knowledge of the past in that comparatively brief period, could be adduced than the contents of the first volume of the new edition of Chambers’s Encyclo- pedia.’’—Phila, Times. “We give a general welcome to the new issue of Cham- bers’s Encyclopedia. It is a most Batista Ovonvinnects of buman knowledge, and must in any case be looked upon as «ne of the milestones which mark our progress.’’—London Standard, “*The merits of this valuable work of reference have been long appreciated. No book of its size gives more in- formation, or gives it, on the whole, with grea’er accu- racy.”’—St, James Gazette, London, “*To go for some particular fact to certain pretentious works is like searching in the proverbial haystack for a needle? in Chambers’s we get the facts at once.”’—Glasgow Mail, “Tt contains the latest information, on the subject of which it treats, down to the year 1888. From daily use we can recommend it both conscientiously and cordially as a marvellously full, accurate, and convenient work of refer- ence.’—JV. O, States, May be ordered from any bookseller. Prospectus, with specimen pages, sent on application. J, B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, 715 and 717 Market Street, PHILADELPHIA, Publishers. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY’S New Books. John Ward, Preacher. A Novel, by MARGARET DELAND, author of ‘¢ The Old Garden and Other Poems.” 12mo, $1.50. John Ward is a Presbyterian clergyman, and this en- gaging story brings thesternest doctrines of Presbyterian theology into close relations with the best elements of Agnosticism. Into it are woven lovers’ experiences, the social interests of village life, ‘‘the short and simple annals of the poor,’’ and many characteristic features of modern civilization. It is quite sure to attract marked attention and to excite animated discussion. Negro Myths from the Geor- gia Coast. Collected by CHARLES C. JONES, JR., author of .* The History of Georgia.” 16mo, taste- fully bound, $1.00. The delightful ‘‘ Uncle Remus”’ stories are but a small part of the quaint folk-stories handed down by tradition among the southern negroes. Colonel Jones has gathered a volume of these, which have been current on the coast of Georgia, and which cannot fail to interest a multitude of readers by their quaint simplicity and grotesque fan- cies. Heartsease and Rue. A new volume of poems by JAMES RUSSELL LoweLL. With a fine steel portrait. Beau- tifully printed and tastefully bound, $1.25. Before the Curfew And Other Poems, Chiefly Occasional. By OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 16mo, beauti- fully printed and bound, gilt top, $1.00. Metrical Translations and Poems. By F. H. Hepce, D. D., and Mrs. A. L. WISTER. 16mo, parchment-paper cover, $1.00. The Second Son. A NOVEL. By Mrs. M. O. W. OLIPHANT and THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. I2mo, $1.50. Irish Wonders. The Ghosts, Giants, Pookas, Demons, Lepre- chawns, Banshees, Fairies, Witches, Widows, Old Maids, and other Marvels of the Emerald Isle. Popular Tales as told by the People. By D. R. MCANALLY, JR. With more than Sixty capital Illustrations. Small 4to, $2.00. Paul Patoff. A novel, by F. MARION CRAWFORD, author of ‘‘A Roman Singer,” etc. 12mo, $1.50. Ormsby Macknight Mitchel, Astronomer and General. A_ biographical narrative by his son, F. A. MItcHEL. With a steel Portrait. Crown Svo, gilt top, $2.00 The Story of Keedon Bluffs. By CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK, author of “The Prophet of the Great Smoky Moun- ” tains,” ‘‘ Down the Ravine,” etc. 16mo, $1.00. Poems. By EDWARD ROWLAND SILL. 16mo, parch- ment paper cover. $1.00. x", Hor sale by all booksellers. Sent by mail, post- paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers, HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., BOSTON. Ir EAST SEVENTEENTH StT., New York. 52nd Ldition----r0gth Thousand. Haswell’s Book. Mechanics’ and Engineers’ Pocket-Book of Tables, Rules, and Formulas pertaining to Mechanics, Mathematics, and Physics: in- cluding Areas, Squares, Cubes, and Roots, &c.; Logarithms, Hydraulics, Hydrodynamics, Steam and the Steam-Engine, Naval Archi- tecture, Masonry, Steam-Vessels, Mills, &c. ; Limes, Mortars, Cements, &c. ; Orthography of Technical Words and Terms, &c., &c. By CHAs. H. HASWELL. 12mo, Pocket-Book Form, $4.00. Engineers’ Pocket- ““T cannot find words to express my admira- tion of the skill and industry displayed in producing the same. To you belongs the honor of having presented to the world a book con- taining more positive information than was ever before published. I could with justice say more.” — Extract from a Letter to the Author Jrom Capt. J. Ericsson, the celebrated Engi- neer. To the mechanic and the engineer it is simply indispensable, and it makes of itself a valuable library for them ; like their tools, it issomething they need to have always at hand for use. It is the collected lessons of wisdom and experience, and will save a vast amount of labor and re- search, * * * Its contents have been gradually increased, until now it has become, as it were, the only necessary vade mecum of mechanical engineering. When a book intended to supply practical men with exact information for use in difficult and delicate mechanical calculations reaches its forty-fifth edition it needs no commendation to secure further favor for it. —V. VY. Commercial Advertiser. Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. The above work is for sale by all booksellers, or wilt be sent by HARPER & BrotueRrs, fostpaid, to any part of the United States, on receipt of the price. Harper & Broruers’ CATALOGUE sent on receipt of Ten Cents postage-stamps. EMULSION OF PURE COD LIVER OIL AND EH YPOPHOSPHITES Almost as Palatable as Milk. Containing the stimulating properties of the Hypophosphites combined with the Fattening and Strengthening quatitices of Cod Liver Oil, the potency of both being largely increased, A Remedy for Consumption. For Wasting in Children. For Scrofulous Affections. For Anemia and Debility, For Coughs, Colds & ihroat Affections. In fact, ALL diseases where there is an in= flammation of the Throat and Lungs, @ WASTING OF THE FLESH, and a WAN? OF NERVE POWER, nothing in the world equals this palatable Emuision. SOLD BY ALL DRUCCISTS. Seer VCE FRIDAY, APRIL 27, 1888. THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, which held its annual meeting in Washington last week, is the most learned of all Amer- ican scientific societies. Incorporated by the government of the United States, its expenses are paid out of the national treasury, although its members serve without compensation. Made by law the official scientific adviser of the government, it is required, at government expense, to enter upon any scientific investigation which may be asked for by the head of either of the departments, and its conclusions are accepted as those of a competent and disinterested tribunal. For instance: the consolidation of the various Western surveys that were being prosecuted at government expense into the present admirably organized National Geological Survey was the result of a report by a distinguished committee of the National Academy of Sciences, to whom the subject had been officially re- ferred. Another important report was one on the work and dis- coveries of Dr. Peter Collier, formerly chemist of the Agricultural Department, in relation to sorghum; and more recently a specia] committee has been engaged, at the request of the secretary of the treasury, in an investigation in regard to the value of the polariscope test in determining grades of sugar. In addition to this official work, the National Academy of Sciences holds two meetings a year, at which business connected with its organization and work is trans- acted, new members chosen, and papers announcing new dis- coveries in science, or describing lines of original investigation, are read by members or by other persons presented by members. The meeting this year has been an-important one. A larger number of papers than usual were presented ; and, although no remarkable discoveries were announced, there was evidence of great activity, in many of them, along all the lines of original scientific investigation. The law limits the number of new members to be elected at each annual meeting to five. Only three were chosen this year, — Profs. G. Brown Goode, Albert Michelson, and S. C. Chandler; but the great scientific attainments of each are an ample guaranty of the purpose of the National Academy to maintain the high standard that has placed it at the head of all ourscientific associations, and made membership in it so much coveted by scientific men. NOTHING IN CONNECTION with the annual meeting of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington last week was likely to impress an attendant at its public sessions more than the ardent enthusiasm of its members in the work in which they are engaged. A few of them are young men, and more of those not members in- troduced to read papers had not yet reached middle age; but even they were no more absorbed in their labors, or more proud of their successes, than the wearers of snowy locks and gray beards. Even the venerable Dr. C. H. F. Peters, the distinguished astronomer, seemed as much elated at his success in proving that Tycho Brahe, in 1572, with a rude quadrant constructed by himself, determined the position of Nova with an accuracy that would be creditable to a modern astronomer with his wonderfully exact instruments, as was the youngest investigator at being able to add something to the sum.of scientific knowledge. IN THE LAMENTED death of Dr. Cornelius R. Agnew, whose funeral services took place on Saturday last, New York City lost one of its foremost citizens, and science and education a powerful advocate and friend. It was remarked on Saturday last, that so representative an assemblage of men had never before gathered at the bier of anyone man in this city, and it was because of the many- sided character of Dr. Agnew’s activity. Himself a physician and specialist of the very first rank, he chose the broader field of educa- tion for his most powerful efforts. Asa trustee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, as a trustee of Columbia College, and as a founder of the School of Mines, his influence in the cause of higher education can only be appreciated by those who felt it, and by those who worked with him. The friends of Columbia College looked instinctively to him to control and guide that university de- velopment which is now beginning its course. From all of these boards and from many others his wise and kindly counsel will be sorely missed, and his place cannot be easily filled, if ever. Dr. Agnew’s personal contributions to medical science were principally made in the departments of ophthalmic and aural surgery. He was a prominent member of the Sanitary Commission during the Rebel- lion, and afterwards one of the founders of the Union League Club. MEETING OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. A Successful Meeting ; New Members and Councillors ; Medals and Obituary Memoirs ; Receptions and Dinners; List of Papers, Is There Such a Thing as Potential Energy ? — Serpent-Mound. A New Method for the Biological Examination of the Air. — An Interesting Parasite on the Beaver. — The Orbits of Aerolites. Improvements in Spectrum Photography ; Carbon in the Sun. Vertebrate Fauna of the Puerco Series. THE meeting of the National Academy of Sciences, held at Washington last week, was in every respect a successful one. About forty members attended ; the number of papers offered was greater than usual, nearly all of which were read zz extemso, leav- ing very few to be read by title; and the attendance at the public meetings was good. While very little of the business transacted by the academy and by the council is disclosed to the public, it is known that the annual reports were satisfactory, although there was nothing in them of an unusual character. No great scientific discoveries were announced, but several of the papers read showed important progress in special lines of original investigation. With- out disparity to others, three may be mentioned as of special impor- tance. They were, ‘ The Orbits of Aerolites,’ by Prof. H. A. New- ton; ‘ Preliminary Notice of the Object, Methods, and Results of a Systematic Study of the Action of Definitely Related Chemical Compounds upon Animals,’ by Profs. Wolcott Gibbs and Hobart Amory Hare; and ‘Report of Progress in Spectrum Photography,’ and ‘Note on the Spectrum of Carbon and its Existence in the Sun,’ by Prof. H. A. Rowland. The new members of the academy this year are Prof. G. Brown Goode of Washington, assistant secretary of the Smithsonian In- stitution, in charge of the National Museum, and a distinguished naturalist ; Prof. Albert Michelson, the physicist, of Cleveland, O. He is the gentleman who, when he was in the navy, undertook and carried out at Annapolis novel experiments to determine the velocity of light. He becomes the youngest member of the academy. The third new member is Prof. S. C. Chandler, the distinguished as- tronomer, of Cambridge, Mass. The six additional members of the council chosen at this meeting were Messrs. Brush, Langley, Meigs, Pickering, Remsen, and Gould. On Wednesday evening the room at the National Museum in which the meetings of the academy were held was filled by an au- dience that was gathered to witness the presentation of two gold medals. One, the Lawrence Smith gold medal, was awarded to Prof. H. A. Newton of Yale University, for the study of meteors ; and the other, the Henry Draper gold medal, to Prof. E. C. Picker- 196 SCIENCE: ing of Harvard University, for researches in stellar photography. On the same evening obituary memoirs were read, as follows: by Prof. G. F. Barker of the University of Pennsylvania, on the late Prof. Henry Draper of New York; by Prof. Comstock, on Prof. Watson of the University of Michigan ; and by Mr. William Sellers of Philadelphia, on Capt. James B. Eads. The president, Prof. O. C. Marsh, announced the death, since the last meeting, of Dr. F. V. Hayden, an active member of the acad- emy, and Prof. Asa Gray, an associate member. Largely attended receptions, at which many of the most distin- guished people in Washington, both in official, scientific, and liter- ary life, were invited to meet the members of the academy, were given by Prof. Langley and Prof. Alexander Graham Bell, — the former at the Smithsonian Institution, and the latter at Prof. Bell's elegant Washington residence, which was opened for the first time on that occasion since its injury by fire several months ago. A number of dinners were also given during the week in honor of distinguished members of the academy. The following is a full list of the papers entered: ‘The Rota- tion of the Sun,’ by J. E. Oliver; ‘The Foundations of Chemistry,’ by T. Sterry Hunt; ‘On an Improved Form of Quadrant Elec- trometer, with Remarks upon its Use,’ by T. C. Mendenhall; ‘On the Vertebrate Fauna of the Puerco Series,’ by E. D. Cope; ‘Re-enforcement and Inhibition,” by H. P. Bowditch; ‘On Appar- ent Elasticity produced in an Apparatus by the Pressure of the Atmosphere, and the Bearing of the Phenomenon upon the Hypoth- esis of Potential Energy,’ by A. Graham Bell; ‘The Orbits of Aerolites,’ by H. A. Newton; ‘A Large Photographic Telescope,’ by E. C. Pickering ; ‘A New Method for the Biological Examina- tion of Air, with a Description of an Aerobioscope,’ by W. T. Sedgwick and G. R. Tucker, presented by J. S. Billings; ‘ Prelim- inary Notice of the Object, Methods, and Results of a Systematic Study of the Action of Definitely Related Chemical Compounds upon Animals,’ by Wolcott Gibbs and Hobart Amory Hare; ‘On the Auditory Bones of the Batrachia,’ by E. D. Cope; ‘The Orbit of Hyperion,’ by Ormond Stone, presented by S. Newcomb ; ‘ Map of Connecticut River Region in Massachusetts,’ by B. K. Emerson, presented by J. W. Powell; ‘Parallel Series in the Evolution of Cephalopoda, and ‘Evolution of Cephalopoda in the Fauna of the Lias,’ by A. Hyatt; ‘The Evidence of the Fossil Plants as to the Age of the Potomac Formation,’ by L. F. Ward, presented by J. W. Powell; ‘ Vision and Energy,’ by S. P. Langley; ‘ Report of Progress in Spectrum Photography,’ and ‘Note on the Spectrum of Carbon and its Existence in the Sun,’ by H. A. Rowland; ‘On the Constitution of the so-called Double Halogen Salts,’ and ‘Studies on the Rate of Decomposition of the Bromides of the Saturated Alcohol Radicals,’ by Ira Remsen; ‘ The Characteristics of the Orders and Suborders of Fishes,’ by Theo. Gill; ‘The Serpent-Mound and its Surroundings,’ by F. W. Putnam; ‘The Systematic Relations of Platypsyllus as determined by the Larva,’ by C. V. Riley, presented by Theo. Gill; ‘On the Position of the Nova of 1572, as determined by Tycho Brahe,’ by C. H. F. Peters; «Some Notes on the Laramie Groups,’ and ‘On the Structure and Relations of Placoderm Fishes,’ by J. S. Newberry. In selecting papers for notice in Sczence, those that admit of statement in popular language have been taken rather than those which in themselves are most important. Some of the latter are so technical in their character as to be intelligible only to specialists. The abstracts of papers are not given in the order in which they were read. The Hypothesis of Potential Energy. The full title of Professor Alexander Graham Bell’s paper read at the morning session of Thursday was, ‘On Apparent Elasticity produced in an Apparatus by the Pressure of the Atmosphere, and the Bearing of the Phenomenon upon the Hypothesis of Poten- tial Energy.’ Professor Bell showed to the academy an apparatus that looked like the bellows of an accordion. It consisted of a dozen or more sections, each eight inches long, four inches wide, and two inches deep, connected by an air-tight fabric which sur- rounded them and covered the outer portions of the end ones. A tube was inserted in the middle one by which the air could be ex- hausted. Before it was attached to the air-pump, the bellows was [Voi xl “Ner 272 not elastic. Bent either to the one side or the other within cer- tain limits, it would remain in the position in which it was placed. But when the air was partially exhausted, if bent to one side or the other, from the position it assumed, it would spring back to its. original position with considerable force. Of course, this elasticity was not due to potential energy, so called, in the bellows, but to the pressure of the atmosphere upon the out- side of it, holding the sections of it in close contact. An apparently similar phenomenon ina piece of steel (as in a sword-blade, for in- stance) is explained by saying that there is potential energy in the steel. Professor Bell’s experiment raises the question whether the cause of the elasticity is in the steel itself, or outside of it; whether, in fact, there is any such thing as potential energy in matter, or if its elasticity is not due to its surroundings. Professor Bell exhibited two very interesting modifications of his apparatus. In the first the sections of the bellows were thinner on one side than on the other; so that, when the air was partially ex- hausted, it would curl up in the form of a single section of a spiral spring. When in that form, it resisted an effort either to coil it tighter or to straighten it out, although it had none of that apparent elasticity when filled with air under the normal pressure. In the second, a large section was placed in the middle of the bellows, and smaller ones each side of it. When the air was partially exhausted, it was forcibly bent to form an arc of a circle, and a string attached to each end, thus forming of it a bow, from which an arrow was. shot. An interesting discussion ensued after the presentation of Profes- sor Bell’s paper. Professor Simon Newcomb thought that Profes- sor Bell’s experiments suggested that molecular attraction, common- ly called adhesion, may be due to an outward medium, but he did not think it advances them at all on their way to the discovery of this medium. He then defined the terms ‘ potential energy’ and ‘conservation of energy,’ and explained what scientific men mean when they use them. Major J. W. Powell objected to the use of the phrase ‘ potential energy’ as unscientific. As ordinarily employed, it is understood to mean something that can do something, while really it is only a name for something that we know nothing about. The thing it applies to is nowhere, it does nothing, we know nothing about it. The term as usually employed is misleading. Professor Newcomb replied that there is nothing unknown or in- definite about the term ‘ potential energy,’ and repeated his former definition and explanation with several pertinent illustrations. Professor Abbe probably suggested the cause of the divergence of opinion between Professor Newcomb and Major Powell when he said that the confusion arose because physicists give a definite meaning to the term ‘ potential energy,’ which naturalists do not. Serpent-Mound. A series of photographic views projected upon a screen made the paper on ‘ Serpent-Mound and its Surroundings,’ by Professor F. W. Putnam of Harvard University, one of the most entertaining to the non-scientific attendants at the meeting of the National Acad- emy. This curious earthwork is in Adams County, O., on a bluff about one hundred feet high, which forms one of the banks of Brush Creek, about eighty miles from its mouth. The land upon which it stands, with that surrounding it, comprising about seventy acres, has been purchased by the Peabody Museum, and set aside asa park. A gravel road has been built from the turnpike to and into the grounds, a spring-house erected, and picnic-grounds laid out. Although Professor Putnam began an examination of the mound during visits to it several years ago, a systematic explora- tion was not undertaken until last year; and the paper presented to the academy was a report of progress of that exploration. Briefly described, the mound consists of an oval earthwork about four feet high and twenty feet across, enclosing a space eighty feet long and twenty feet wide. The length of the structure on the outside is one hundred and twenty feet, and its width sixty feet. There is a little mound of stones within the enclosed space. Near one end of this mound begins another of similar construction, but having the form of a serpent. The jaws are extended as though the snake was about to swallow the oval mound; the head APRIL 27, 1888. | and neck are well defined; the body has three turns, and the tail a double coil. The entire length of the serpent is about 1,420 feet. Near these principal mounds are several minor ones, and to the south of the serpent a space which bears evidence of having been both the site of an Indian village and also a burial-ground. The whole tract was originally covered with timber and bushes, but it was subsequently cleared and cultivated. Professor Putnam has restored the grass, and has planted about the mound specimens of all the trees that grow in that section of Ohio, thus adding another attraction to the place. Several years ago Professor Putnam picked up a fragment of hu- man bone that had been turned out by the plough, and at the point where he found it he began to dig last summer. Very near the surface he discovered a human skeleton, a few portions of which only were missing. There was no doubt that this skeleton was modern, — that the burial had been made by the historic Indians, perhaps within the present century. A number of large stones which were originally set up upon their edges about the grave — one at the head, one at the foot, and several along the sides — had been thrown down by the plough, but had not been much removed from their original positions. This grave was on the edge of what seemed to be a mass of stones about eleven feet long and six feet wide; anda trench dug around the edge of this disclosed several other graves, some of them deeper than the first one discovered, and covered with stones. Want of space forbids a detaited description of the explorations of last summer. It is sufficient to say that Professor Putnam is convinced that most of the graves are those of interlopers; that is, not of the Indians who built the mound, but of a later race, who probably were ignorant of their predecessors, and did not know that they were living on an old burial-ground. But the skeletons of two of the supposed mound-builders were found. A section made through the centre of one of the mounds disclosed the bones of several ‘intruders,’ one of which had been disturbed by a wood- ‘chuck ; but at a depth of six feet was found the skeleton of the man over whom the mound was raised as a monument. The bones were those of a large man, about six feet in height, and showed him to be a person of massive frame. The body lay upon its back, with the right arm extended at right angles, and the left arm at the side. The only object found near it was a mussel-shell that lay near the bones of the left leg. Beneath the skeleton was a layer of clay that had been placed there, and upon which a fire had been kept for a long time. Near the surface the clay had been burned almost as red as a brick, and it showed evidence of heat to a depth of several inches. On the top of the clay were the ashes from the fire, and perhaps others, several inches thick; and upon these the body had been laid, and the mound erected over it. In another instance, in the burial-place where the first skeleton was found, the body had been laid upon flat stones covered with a layer of ashes, not from a fire built upon the spot, but elsewhere, and which Professor Putnam suspects were produced from burn- ing corn. He has not examined them carefully enough to determine. There is no mound at this point. The explorations will be continued during the coming summer, and a further report was promised for the next meeting of the academy. A New Aerobioscope. A paper on ‘A New Method for the Biological Examination of Air, with a Description of an Aerobioscope,’ prepared by Professor W. T. Sedgwick of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, de- ‘scribing experiments and inventions made by himself and one of his students, Mr. G. R. Tucker, was one of the popular features of Wednesday’s session. Professor Sedgwick was introduced by Dr. J.S. Billings of the Army Medical Museum, who spoke briefly of the importance and difficulty, in cultivating bacteria from germs ob- tained from the air, of being certain that nothing was obtained except what is desired, and that what is wanted is secured. Professor Sedgwick gave a brief history of the discovery of the existence of germs in the air, and of the advancement of scientific knowledge on that subject to the present time. He spoke of the cultivation of germs, and described the different kinds of apparatus in use for obtaining these germs. He then showed how, bya series SCLEINGE: 197 of steps, he and Mr. Tucker have perfected an instrument for se- curing the germs, which he calls an ‘ aerobioscope,’ and which is superior to any of those devised by European biologists. Without attempting a full description of this apparatus, it is enough to say that it consists of a glass tube six inches long and two or two and one-half inches in diameter. It is open at one end, and continued at the other at a greatly reduced size, not more than one-eighth of an inch in diameter. The tube is sterilized by heating, and four or five inches of sterilized granulated sugar is placed in the small part of the tube. Professor Sedgwick said that it had been denied that sugar could be sterilized, but he had accomplished it, raising the temperature as high as 120° C. without converting the sugar into caramel. Sterilized nutrient gelatine is then introduced into the tube, and forms a film upon the inner surface. A portion of the air the germs of which it is desired to examine is then drawn slow- ly through the tube from the larger end. The germs are arrested by the sugar; sothat, when the ends of the tube are closed, they may be knocked down with the sugar into the larger part of the tube, and are developed on the gelatine. The sugar also becomes dissolved, and is a nutrient for the germs. Professor Sedgwick showed why sugar was a better medium for holding back the germs than sand, glass wool, or any of the other substances that have been used. He also described an apparatus he has invented for introducing the germ-laden air into the tubes and at the same time accurately measuring it, and also the method of preserving the sterility of the stoppers. He exhibited a number of tubes prepared for experiment, and others in which germs were growing in various stages of development. The Systematic Relation of Platypsyllus as determined by the Larva. Professor C. V. Riley, in his paper on the above subject, drew attention to the unique character of Platypsyllus castorzs, a para- site of the beaver, and gave an epitome of the literature on the sub- ject, showing how the insect had puzzled systematists, and had been placed by high authority among the Co/eoftera and the JZal- lophaga, and made the type even of a new order. He showed the value, as at once settling the question of its true position, of a knowledge of the adolescent stages. He had had, since November, 1886, some fourteen specimens of the larva obtained from a beaver near West Point, Neb., and had recently been led to study his ma- terial at the instance of Dr. George H. Horn of Philadelphia, who, at the last monthly meeting of the Entomological Society of Wash- ington, announced the discovery of the larva by one of his corre- spondents the present spring, and who has a description of the larva in type. Professor Riley indicated the undoubted coleopte- rological characteristics of the insect in the imago state, laying stress on the large scutellum and five-jointed tarsi, which at once remove it from the JZad/ophaga, none of which possess these char- acters. Healso showed that the larva fully corroborates its coleop- terological position, while its general structure, and particularly the trophi and anal cerci and pseudopod, confirm its clavicorn affini- ties. He showed that the atrophied mandibles in the imago really existed as described by LeConte, and that even in the larva they were feeble, and of doubtful service in mastication. He mentioned as confirmatory of these conclusions the finding by one of his agents, Mr. A. Koebele, of ZeftznzZ/us (the coleopterological nature of which no one has doubted, and the nearest ally to Platypsy/lus), associated with the latter upon beaver-skins from Alaska ; also the parasitism of Leftzus upon mice. He paid a high compliment to the judgment and accuracy of the late Dr. LeConte, whose work on the imago deserves the highest praise, and whose conclusions were thus vindicated. “ Platypsyllus, therefore,” he concluded, “isa good coleopteron, and in all the characters in which it so strongly ap- proaches the WZadlophaga it offers merely an illustration of modifi- cation due to food-habit and environment. In this particular it is, however, of very great interest as one of the most striking illustra- tions we have of variation in similar lines through the influence of purely external or dynamical conditions, and where genetic con- nection and heredity play no part whatever. It is at the same time interesting because of its synthetic characteristics, being evidently an ancient type, from which we get a good idea of the connection in the past of some of the present well-defined orders of insects.” 198 The Orbits of Aerolites. Professor H. A. Newton, in discussing the orbits of aerolites, pre- sented the results of the observation and study of a great number of meteors. Without following his line of argument, which was a very able one, his principal conclusion may be given, which is that the aerolites are moving in direct and not in retrograde orbits ; that is, they move in the same general direction as the earth, and not in an opposite direction. The fact that the earth does not meet as many as it overtakes is one of his reasons for this conclu- sion. At the same time he admitted that there may be two rea- sons why fewer meteors met by the earth should be observed, be- sides their actual comparative number: first, they may move with such velocity that few reach the earth; and, second, they may fall when men are asleep or not abroad, that is, in the morning hours. The first of these points he did not discuss; but of the second he said, that of ninety-four observed aerolites that reached the earth, and whose zenith is known only at the instant they fall, more ap- peared in the afternoon than in the forenoon, seven-eighths of them in the daylight. Of the meteorites which we have in our cabinets, he said, and which have been seen to fall, by far the greater part have come from stones that were following the earth, and not moving in the opposite direction. Spectrum Photography and the Spectrum of Carbon. Professor H. A. Rowland of Johns Hopkins University presented two brief but very important papers on the spectrum. With new and greatly improved instruments invented and constructed at the university, he has succeeded in making a much more perfect map of the solar spectrum than his former one. The definition of the lines is far better than before, and in some cases single lines have been divided up. He also projected upon a screen, pictures of a number of the groups of lines in the spectrum of carbon, and an- nounced his discovery of the wider distribution of carbon in the sun than has previously been demonstrated. Vertebrate Fauna of the Puerco Series. In his paper on the above subject, Professor E. D. Cope gave the position of this formation as below the lowest eocene beds, and above the upper cretaceous, and so of doubtful reference to one or the other of these great systems. The beds of Puerco occur in New Mexico; and Professor Cope said that he had described one hundred and six species from them, of which twelve are reptiles, one a bird, and ninety-three are mammalia. Besides a species of snap- ping-tortoise (Chelydra crassa, Cope), the reptiles presented noth- ing remarkable excepting three species of aquatic saurians of the genus Champsosaurus, Cope, which have their nearest relations in the period next older (Laramie). The greatest interest attaches to the mammalia. The species all belong to extinct families and sub- orders, except four possible lemurs; and the predominant orders of the first immediately following in time are absent. Eleven of the species are probably monotromes, or of the same order as the Australian duck-bill; forty-nine are flesh-eaters ; and twenty-six are hoofed types. All the forms show themselves to be the ancestors of the later and modern mammals by indubitable characters of their structure. AN ETHNOGRAPHICAL COLLECTION FROM ALASKA. THE American Museum of Natural History in New York has received a magnificent ethnographical collection from Alaska, col- lected by Lieutenant Emmon, which forms a valuable supplement to the Powell collection from British Columbia, in the same mu- seum. While the latter includes principally specimens of Haida and Tsimpshian origin, the new accession has been collected among the Tlingit, in whose territory Lieutenant Emmon spent more than five years. The new collection is now on exhibition in the museum, occupying about a fourth of the ethnological hall. It is arranged in several groups, the first comprising a collection of fishing implements and weapons. The implements resemble in style those of the Haida and other tribes of the North-west coast. Of particular interest is a throwing-stick from Sitka, carved in the style peculiar to the Tlingit and Haida. The implement itself, however, is undoubtedly an imitation of the Eskimo throwing-board. SCLENCE: [Vor 2s Nos27¢ The next group comprises a collection of weapons and armatures. We find among these, jackets made of heavy elk and sea-lion skins, which were impenetrable to the stone and copper weapons of an- cient times. The Russian buttons on one of these show that it was used comparatively recently. Besides these, there is a series of remarkable armatures made of round sticks tied firmly together, and of thin pieces of wood arranged in a similar way. While the body was thus protected, heavy masks and hats, carved so as to present the crest of the warrior, fairly covered the head. They consisted of two or three parts made of heavy wood; and we can easily im- agine how fierce a Tlingit warrior, incased in this armature, must have looked. The stone battle-axes, of which the collection con- tains quite a number, could hardly hurt men protected by this hat and coat. In the same case in which these armatures are on exhibition, we see a collection of whistles used in dances. These do not properly belong to the Tlingit, who do not use whistles at their festivals, but are imported from the Queen Charlotte Islands, the country of the Haida, who have a great variety of these instruments. There is one flageolet in the collection, and several others are known which were collected among the Haida; but it is doubtful whether they are an original invention of these tribes, or an imitation of Euro- pean instruments. It is very remarkable that the Tlingit should hardly use any whistles during their dances, while all tribes of British Columbia use them to a great extent. This is one of the few facts that are known, tending to prove that the culture of North-west America has been derived from various sources. It is to be regretted that the Powell collection does not contain whistles from the Kwakiutl, which would serve as a valuable object of com- parison with those of the Haida, of which the museum possesses a great number. ; Lieutenant Emmon has collected very valuable implements made of mountain-goat horn; but, what is more interesting, he shows us how these beautiful spoons and ladles are manufactured. The ele- gant curvature of the handleis produced by means of a strong piece of wood with two oblique perforations, a larger and a smaller one. The lower portion of the horn is pushed through the wider perfora- tion, and the point turned back so that it can be pushed into the smaller hole. Thus it gets the curved shape required for the han- dle. The spoon itself is pressed between two pieces of wood, sim- ilar to a lemon-squeezer. By the side of the mountain-goat horn implements we observe beautifully carved paint-brushes, paint-pots made of stone, paints, baskets, and other household goods. The most interesting part of the collection, however, is the large number of masks and dancing-implements, the greater part of which have been taken from graves. There are also very valuable and interesting rattles. It is remarkable that the collection con- tains only a few rattles in the shape of ravens, and these not elab- orately carved, while the Powell collection contains many beautiful specimens of this class. This fact shows that they were probably not originally a Tlingit, but a Haida or Tsimpshian design. Be- sides this, Lieutenant Emmon states that they are only used in dances and festivals that have no religious character. In all sha- manistic ceremonies other styles of rattles are used. Among the Tsimpshian, on the other hand, the raven rattle is the exclusive property of the Raven gens. Among the rattles of the Tlingit we observe many a beautiful carving, and it is worthy of remark that most of them represent certain myths or mythical beings. We ob- serve the fabulous grandmother of men, of whom the Haida also. tell, the Yék (the genii of man), and the shaman tearing out the tongues of various animals in order to obtain the power of witch- craft. Above these rattles, neck-rings made of red-cedar bark are ex- hibited. It appears, from astudy of the Emmon and Powell collec- tions, that these rings are not by any means so extensively used by the Haida and Tlingit as by the Kwakiutl, among whom they are closely connected with.their religious ceremonies and dances. In- deed, it seems almost impossible to properly classify the neck-rings of the Haida and Tlingit, which seem to be used almost exclu- sively as ornaments. Among the Kwakiutl, the spirits of the dead, the cannibal, and other mythical figures, are each represented by a peculiar kind of ring, which is highly prized by its owner. When these rings are worn, the faces of the dancers are painted in a cer- APRIL 27, 1888. | tain way, peculiar to each mythical figure, which may be suggestive of the origin of the use of masks on the coast. We notice a much decayed ring in Emmon’s collection, carefully woven by folding nar- row strips of cedar-bark. The Tlingit were unable to give any in- formation as to the use of this ring. It is in use among a certain gens of the Kwakiutl (Qanikila) near the north point of Vancouver Island. The ring is set with haliotis-shells, and adorned with ermine-skins, the ends being rolled up in helix-like figures. A head-ring made in a similar way belongs to the dress of the dancer. It is exclusively worn by the daughter of the chief of the gens Qanikila, and is highly valued. An enormous quantity of bark is required for its manufacture. Its occurrence in a Tlingit grave shows the extent of the trade all along the coast, even before the advent of the whites. In the same case a great number of crowns used by dancers is exhibited. They are made of mountain-goat horns, of wood carved so as to imitate the shape of the horns, or of copper. They are also used by the neighboring tribes. Among the head-ornaments we observe a great number of strips made of bear-skin with two ears. The same kind of ornament is found in the Powell collection, collected among the Tsimpshian, who trim it with human hair dyed red and white. Of course, there are painted leather aprons, and beautiful blankets woven of mountain-goat wool, in great variety. The most important part of the collection are the masks, of which a great number are exhibited. They are especially valuable, as Lieutenant Emmon took great pains to ascertain the meaning of the masks, which thus become a rich source of information for the student of ethnology. A comparison of these masks with others collected on Vancouver Island and in Dean Inlet shows that the style of North-west American art, although uniform in general outlines, has its specific character in various localities. The imita- tion of animal forms is much closer here than in the southern re- gions, where the forms are more conventional, certain attributes of the animal alone being added to human figures. Another and a very interesting peculiarity of these masks are the figures of ani- mals attached to the faces. The Eskimo tribes of southern Alaska carve their masks in the same fashion, numerous attachments be- longing to each. This is another proof of the influence of Indian art upon that of the Eskimo. The figures attached to the faces refer, as a rule, to certain myths ; and the same is true of the Eski- mo masks and their characteristic wings and figures. A few of the masks in the Emmon collection, although used by the Tlingit, are evidently of foreign origin. There is, for instance, a mask of the human-headed crane, one of the principal masks of the Tsimpshian; and another one with two faces, the outer being cut in the middle and opening on hinges. Such masks are also peculiar to southern tribes. A considerable number of masks show deep hollow eyes and sunken cheeks. They represent the heads of dead men. Among the other a certain class with thick lips and beards, and eyebrows made of otter-skin, are of interest. They represent the fabulous Kushtaka, the otter people, of which many tales and traditions are told. Another remarkable mask is that of the mosquito. This is of special interest, as the mosquito is among the southern tribes the genius of the cannibal, and as cannibalistic ceremonies are not known to be practised by the Tlingit. It may therefore be assumed that the myth referring to the mosquito is found in a somewhat altered form among the Tlingit. \ A great number of small idols, the Yék, or genii of the shamans, forms another group of the collection. They are used in incanta- tions. There is also a very remarkable pillow, —a curved piece of wood, nicely carved, which is placed under the shaman’s neck while he lies in a trance, and helps him to confer with the spirits. We will only mention the numerous charms, bone and stone or- naments, beautiful jades, slate, and other stone implements, many of which are beautifully finished: This remarkable collection is one of the most complete, systematic, and consequently valuable, brought from the North-west coast to the museums of our country, It is to be hoped, that, after the new wing of the museum shall have been completed, the Powell collection, which is at present stowed away, will be exhibited for comparison. Both collections may serve as a foundation for studies on the ethnology of southern Alaska and northern British Columb a, F. B. SCIUSIN CIE, 199 MENTAL SCIENCE. The Mental Powers of Insects. ALONG with the introduction of scientific methods into psychol- ogy there was ushered in the comparative study of psychic phenom- ena. The interest was no longer exclusively concentrated upon human intellect, but the study of the minds of anifmals was shown able to contribute results of great value for many of the most im- portant generalizations of a scientific psychology. Moreover, it has become recognized that we must not read into the actions of animals motives and conceptions suggested by our own conduct under analogous conditions, but must interpret the results objec- tively, and decide from the results whether our notions of the plan of animal behavior is valid or not, and to what extent. Among the problems included in such a scheme, the power of the senses is of fundamental importance; for these are the avenues of connection between the organism and the environment. The difficulty here is to devise tests that will yield a definite result. In ourselves we can always have recourse to the analysis of con- sciousness. Some recent attempts to shed further light on the senses of insects will indicate the scope and difficulties of the problem. Forel, a Swiss naturalist and worthy follower of Huber, has added to his studies of ants by testing their sensory powers (/e- cuedl zoolog. suzsse, iv. No. 2, 1887; also Centralblatt Suir Physio- logze, No. 23). Among his observations are some tests of the sensibility to ultra-violet rays. Do ants see these rays, or do they feel them (presumably as heat-sensations) through the skin? He blinded some ants by coating their eyes with a varnish, and found the behavior of such ants to be hardly distinguishable from that of normal ones. They probably retained some light-sensibility, for they preferred to remain in the bright parts of the nest. These ants are now put into a box with a glass top. On this top is placed a piece of ‘cobalt-glass,’ that transmits the ultra-violet rays of the spectrum, and rext to it a frame with a glass bottom containing a solution of esculine that absorbs the ultra-violet rays. In addition, there is a dish of water over one portion of the top to weaken the heat-rays, and over another portion a sheet of cardboard to give shade. The position of these objects is varied, and from the con- gregation of ants under one or other of them he draws the follow- ing conclusions: (1) the ants see light, and especially ultra-violet, as Lubbock had shown; (2) they perceive it chiefly with their eves, for when the eyes are varnished they are indifferent to the ultra- violet, and re-act only to a bright sunlight ; (3) the dermal sensa- tions are not as important as had been believed. Another interesting point concerns the power of ants to recog- nize one another after long separation. In one species (Cuwszpomo- tus lignzperdus) the return of a number of its fellows to a nest after forty-one days’ absence was followed by a fierce struggle, in which several of the new arrivals perished. After a few days, however, there was peace between them. It is to be noted that the blinded ants also took part in the attack. A second party was returned after eight days, and at once recognized and received as friends. But this is variable in the different species ; cases being on record in which recognition took place after a year’s absence, and again where the ants in the pupa stage, removed for only four days, were attacked. The use of the antennz Forel believes to be mainly as organs of smell. If the antennz be cut off or coated with paraffine, the ants are incapable of pursuing their ordinary routine of life; while wasps, whose heads, including the eyes and pharynx, were re- moved, but with the antenne intact, sought and found honey, and even tried, though in vain, to eat it. In insects using their eyes in the main, the antennz are rudimentary, and such insects are inac- tive at night. Ants, too, have a sense of taste, preferring some substances to others, but are not able to distinguish poisonous sub- stances. The effect of poisons varies in different insects. Arsenic kills gnats, while hundreds of AZyrmzca scabrznodzs eat it without ill results. Strychnine does not produce cramps in ants, and they die of it slowly, while slight doses of morphine bring on severe convulsions. The sense of hearing, excluding the sense of jar, is very rudimentary, if it exists at all; while touch is highly developed, ants re-acting to the slightest contact. The same is true of their 200 temperature-sense, as the changing of the position of the larva at different times of day indicates. Insects must be very insensitive to pain, or a spider would hardly eat up its own leg just after it had been cut off, as Forel observed. Ants are thus well supplied with senses, and, though their actions are largely instinctive, some con- trol over the co-ordination of these instincts undoubtedly exists. Another worker in the same field, Dr. H. C. McCook (Proceed- ings of the Philadelphia Academy of Sctences, part iti. 1887), con- tributes a note on the sense of direction in ants. The species is the Formzca rufa of Great Britain, and the observation was made in Scotland. These ants build mounds as much as three feet high and from six to seven feet in diameter at the base. From such a mound, roads are seen to radiate. These roads are stained dark, probably by the-action of the formic acid which the ants secrete; and the leaves and grass over which the road passes are worn smooth by the constant action of innumerable legs. From one such mound three roads radiated, and were traced to their termini, — three oak-trees, on the branches of which were Ap/zdes, the ‘ milk- cows’ of the ants. The directness of these roads was remarkable. The first was twenty-one paces (about sixty-five feet) long, and was almost perfectly straight from the nest to the tree. The sec- ond was twenty-three paces (seventy feet) long, and varied less than three inches from a straight line if measured from the nest toa point within two feet of the tree, where an originally straight path had been abandoned for a détour. The third road was thirty-four paces long; for six paces it ran straight, then encountered an old stump that caused a deflection, but then went directly to the tree, across a foot-path, and, as it was, the deviation was not more than three feet from a straight line. The straightness of these roads cannot be attributed to chance; and the fact that ants can see only a little way off (and especially in this mass of bracken and other plants) opens up a real problem as to the nature of a sense of direction in ants. Dr. McCook adds the mention of the remarkable feat of a Texas ant making an almost perfectly straight path 669 feet long, 448 feet of which ran under ground at an-average depth of 18 inches. THE FUNCTION OF THE CEREBRUM IN THE Doc.— In his last contribution to the physiology of the brain, the eminent physi- ologist at Strassburg, Professor Goltz (Pfliiger’s Archiv, 1888), gives an account of a dog from which one entire cerebral hemi- sphere had been removed. Here there was not, as some physiolo- gists would expect, a paralysis and an anesthesia on the side op- posite the injured organ; but the action of the dog was quite normal, only that he preferred the side controlled by the intact hemisphere. This goes to show that in the dog one hemisphere can to a large extent perform the functions for the entire body. As a converse proof, if symmetrical regions are removed from both halves of the brain, the result is a much more serious one. An animal lacking both its frontal lobes had its intelligence much diminished, was restless, constantly moving, could not feed itself, could not hold a bone, and was a decidedly abnormal dog. A dog with both its occipital lobes gone shows marked sensory defects, but behaves much more normally than the former dog, thus indi- cating that the part removed is of vital importance. A SUGGESTION FOR THE ‘ TELEPATHIC’ THEORY. — Professor Josiah Royce has an apt word to say in regard to the cases of coincidence of a critical experience with a strong impression of danger on the part of a distant friend, which some regard as evi- dence of ‘telepathy’ (dZzzd, April, 1888). He offers as a solution of the many cases in which the evidence rests entirely on the word of a reliable witness, that the memory is the subject of a hitherto undescribed hallucination: it is an “instantaneous hallucination of memory, consisting in the fancy, at the very moment of some excit- ing experience, that one has expected it before its coming.’ As A learns of the death of B, it suddenly and vividly occurs to him that fe expected B’s death, and had a distinct presentiment of it. The belief might come with irresistible force, and acquire strength by reflection. One such hallucination of memory is well known: the feeling that an experience has been here before. Here we easily vecognize the illusion, because we know that we do not live our lives twice; but in the other case no such corrective is at hand. if such illusions occur, marked instances of them should be found SCIENCE: [VoLwexe ANow272 among the insane. Two cases are cited, the one of a young girl whose lover (so she says whenever any thing happens) predicted every thing to her, — her removal to another asylum, a change of physicians, and so on. The other case is that of a young man who believes that all the events of asylum-life have been told to himina previous conversation. The news of the day is similarly antici- pated. An interesting point in this case is, that the patient tells that when these (imaginary) conversations occur he pays little at- tention to them, but when the real occurrence takes place he vividly remembers the former conversation. His memory for real events remains quite good. Now that attention has been called to the possibility of such illusions, normal instances of them should be forthcoming. ELECTRICAL SCIENCE. Cost of Electrical Distribution by Transformers and Secondary Batteries. THE attention of electricians, both in this country and in Eng- land, has been lately called to the relative values of continuous- current and alternating-current distribution. In the discussion be- fore the English Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians, the majority of the speakers seemed to incline toward the alternat- ing system, apparently relying to some extent on rose-colored re- ports of the successful working of plants on’ this side of the water. There were several members, however, who spoke strongly in favor of the continuous-current system; and one of them, Mr. Crompton, has published figures of the comparative cost of installing ten thousand 16-candle power lamps, burning simultaneously, using in the first case the continuous-current system with storage-batteries ; in the second, alternating-current transformers. WITH SECONDARY BATTERIES, ID\ATEMTOSnogoencbun bovouDEpyUOGGbaD syoObODSNSbe SsoudoDODNOBOODOD one Buildin gorsultabov.e ects eletoieteeeisttesietacimseett teeter Charging-main, 45 tons at £80...-....6..-- 0022s ence eet eeeee 3,600 Laying maininicul verti eertsl-\-l clei =a eel 1,500 Distributing-mains, 12,000 yards at 16s. per yard. 9,600 Service=boxes, 450. at G20 che. cnc - cee cee veces sie esinlele sm vee mms l= =ielelm goo Batteries, four sets of 50 cells each ............--.--:20- eeeecee eee 8,640 Resulating-pears.- scat ace meen eine et ile eiateiel etal stel- i iat 1,000 STLotal ersnk fe hore Soe ee uA eel ina: eects iste ari creteteterens £48.740 WITH ALTERNATING-CURRENT TRANSFORMERS. 1,450 horse-power at £3 r2s. per horse-power .......-..--.++-+++---+ $12,500 Dynamosjandiexciterss eee eee ret cesie tease seis eee 5540 Biildinesitoisulte above eereretetetetteeteteteietetsteteteteleetelelatetemtetaletetettaletatatetel labs I1,000 (Qrergtysanety Gonos oogcaseqaooddnon oUneSadonpooROSccse cog SeSnD 2,400 Distributing-main, 12,000 yards at 14s. per yard .... ... «+--+. «++ 8,400 Service-boxes,4 Salty 42 been eieeteteteeistetelstsintereaistelsialeteleditelsete ttt ietet tele goo Regulating-gear ..- sce ees ejciececieiena = aisles 0+ == -]-[9\eee~l==lal-l= =) sle(01 500 Transformers, assuming one large one for two houses, 309 at £25 (Gncludingsfixin p) peer eeeese tists tere easter erat 7,500 Uber tlaabuo anodoSbaDoounucMsaMAuce. aueRds, ssonddoadsoosedes 448,740 These estimates may be taken for what they are worth: they probably give an approximate idea of the cost of different items. The storage system of Mr. Crompton, however, is not a complete storage system, such as will be used if secondary batteries become much more economical than at present. The cells are not located at some distance from the station, and charged by currents of high electro-motive force: they are placed zz the station, and are only charged for a portion of the twenty-four hours, the plant remaining idle during the remainder of the day. For short distances, such as Mr. Crompton contemplates, this is possibly the best arrangement. It would have been interesting if the running expenses of the two systems had been compared, but the necessary data are hardly, at the present time, available. : ADVANTAGES OF ELECTRICITY FOR RAILROAD-WORK. — The rapid advances of the application of electricity to street-car trac- tion brings up the question whether we cannot in the near future look to the displacement of the steam-locomotive by the electric motor. The conditions of street-car and railroad work are differ- ent: in the first, electricity is called upon to displace horses, an extremely costly motive power; in the second, it must displace steam. That it can economically replace horses has been shown APRIL 27, 1888. ] by a number of electric tramways at present in operation. The only question is, will considerations of safety and esthetics allow the current to be economically conveyed to thecars? For instance : in the Sprague Electric Railway in Richmond, using an overhead conductor, it is costing for power about $1.70 per day per car, the cars averaging over eighty miles. This is for only twenty cars. When the full complement is running, the cost will be reduced, probably to about $1.50 per car per day. This cost is to be com- pared with the $5 or $6 that must be allowed per car per day for horses, at an average of, say, 60 miles per car per day. If the overhead system could be used, then, in all of our cities, there would be no doubt as to the results as far as street-car traction ‘goes. When it comes to ordinary railroad-work, the state of af- fairs is very different. The question is, shall we substitute for steam, used directly, a power which is in the first place derived from steam, and which suffers the losses due to at least two trans- formations before it is utilized in driving thetrain? As far as mere economy of power-production goes, the question is easily answered : the efficiency of a stationary steam-plant is greater than that of a locomotive-engine; and the cost of a horse-power delivered to the -driving-axles of the train by the electric motor would not be more for coal, attendance, and depreciation, than the same power from the locomotive, even after allowing for all the losses in the differ- ent transformations. The advantages of the electric motor are these: the driving-machinery is the simplest that it is possible to ‘conceive of; the armature of the motor would be fitted directly on the car-axle, while the field-magnets would rest on the truck. Each axle would have its motor, and in a train every second or third car would be a motor-car. One advantage of this has been pointed out, first, probably, by Prof. George Forbes. Taking a six-car train, we would have the traction, not of four wheels, but of six- teen, supposing two motor-cars. This will enable us to make any speed that safety will allow, to start quickly, and ‘to take at high speeds, grades that at present are inadmissible. In fact, we can dispense with a great deal of the grading that makes the construc- tion of railroad-lines so costly. Again: on the down grades we ‘can make our motors into dynamos feeding current into the line, —a plan due, I think, to Mr. Sprague, — instead of wasting energy by braking the wheels; and we can in the same way brake the ‘cars when stopping. The advantages, then, are great simplicity, increased traction, allowing an increase of speed and a decrease in the cost of constructing the road, recovery of energy on down grades and in stopping. As compared with city electric tramways, such as are now in use, railroads would have the advantages of simplicity, in not requiring any gearing between the motor and car- axle, and in allowing any economical means of conducting the ‘current to the car, and the employment of high electro-motive forces. There is one great disadvantage, however, that the future may remove, but which at present is serious. A station supplying -any portion of the line will have to have a capacity equal to the maximum work that will be required of it at any time, while the mean work might be very much less than this. As the maximum may differ from the average work five or six times, we would have ‘to equip stations of five or six times the present capacity of the locomotives, at a cost that would throw the balance in favor of the present system, unless there happened to be very considerable sources of natural power along the line. The remedy for this —a remedy which cannot be at present applied —is in equipping the stations with storage-batteries ; charging them when the required power is below the average, drawing from them when it is above. We may say, then, that, with long-distance direct lighting and electric tramways, electric railways wait the development of a more perfect storage-battery to be successful. ELECTRIC PHENOMENA PROVOKED BY RADIATION. — Very lately considerable attention has been attracted to the effect of light on the phenomena of electrical discharge, the light generally in- -creasing the effects, allowing discharge where it would not other- wise occur. In the Phzlosophical Magazine for April, Professor Righi gives a preliminary account of some interesting experiments he is trying in the same field. Two metals, one in the form of a --disk, the other a net, are placed opposite one another. One of the metals, A, is connected with one pair of quadrants of an electrom- -eter; the other metal is connected with the other pair and the SCiEN CE 201 earth ; and the needle is charged. If A is illuminated, a deflection is obtained which reaches a maximum in a time which is shorter the nearer the irradiating source and the larger the surface of the metals. The sun’s light does not produce this effect in a marked way: the magnesium light is more active; the voltaic arc gives the best results. It is probable that the ultra-violet rays are the most active. Four of these ‘photo-electrical cells’ are connected in series, and give the same results as ordinary cells in series on open circuit. HEALTH MATTERS. Portagiousness of Consumption. EN a recent paper presented to the Medical Press Association of St. Louis, Dr. William Porter discusses the ‘ portagiousness of phthisis.. He prefers the word ‘portagious,’ because it conveys a more exact idea of the manner of transmission of phthisis than either ‘contagious’ or ‘infectious.’ In his paper the term ‘ phthisis’ is used to denote that class of disease to which belongs the large majority of cases of slowly progressive pulmonary inflammations ; ie., chronic tubercular phthisis. Dr. Porter propounds the following question : ‘ Have we reason- able evidence that the products of, or emanations from, a phthisical subject may be carried to, received by, and cause like disease in, one previously free from phthisis ?’ The answer to this question he thinks must be answered in the affirmative, and quotes the follow- ing experiments as sustaining this view. In experiments made by Tappeiner in 1883, tuberculous sputa being inhaled by eighteen healthy animals, tubercles in both lungs, and pleura, were after- wards found in seventeen. That record of Koch’s work found in the second volume of the ‘Imperial Health Reports,’ shows, that, after the inhalation of material from phthisical cavities, the rabbits and guinea-pigs under observation had, within twenty-eight days, tubercles throughout the lungs of all, and in the liver and spleen of some. The carefully conducted investigations of Cadeac and Mullet, recently published, show, that while no positive result was obtained from compelling rabbits and guinea-pigs to inspire air ex- haled by phthisical patients, yet when air was used collected from near the beds of hospital inmates, the air presumably carrying par- ticles of sputa, two out of twelve guinea-pigs acquired tubercle. The writer refers to some experiments which he made, to deter- mine this point. ‘‘ Three healthy guinea-pigs were selected. One was inoculated with phthisical sputa, and placed in a small box with one of the others. The third was confined in a box in an ad- joining room. They were cared for alike, and had similar food. In four weeks the first one died, and the examination showed tuber- cle in the lungs, and a large cheesy gland near the point of inocu- lation. Three weeks after, the second animal sickened and was killed. I found small granulations scattered through both lungs, at some points aggregated ; and in the right lung were two nodules, having a soft cheesy centre. The third guinea-pig, examined three months later, had no evidence of tubercle or other disease.” The only experiment upon a human subject was made by Drs. Demet, Pararky, and Zallories, of Syra, in Greece, who inoculated, with sputa from a phthisical patient, a man whose history afforded no suspicion of tubercle, and whose lungs were healthy, but who had gangrene due to femoral embolism, and who would not permit amputation. In three weeks, auscultation revealed evidences of disease at the right apex. Thirty-eight days after the inoculation, the man died from gangrene, when it was found that the upper right lobe had seventeen small tubercles and two granulations in the apex of the left lung. In an inquiry into the transmissibility of phthisis, made by the Collective Investigation Committee in London, two hundred and sixty-one answers were received from physicians in family practice, affirming the proposition that phthisis may be communicated from the sick to the well; and evidence was given in proof of the state- ment. One hundred and ninety-two observers recorded cases where both husband and wife became phthisical, in one hundred and thirty cases there being no phthisis in the family of the one to whom the disease was thought to have been transmitted. Some of these cases were very interesting. Dr. Spriggs of Great Bedford instanced the case of Miss R., aged 48, a dressmaker, who, living in rather a lonely cottage at C., Bedfordshire, had three ap- 202 prentices, young girls from seventeen to nineteen years of age, not related, from three adjoining villages, who took it in turn to remain in the house and sleep with her, each one week at a time. During their apprenticeship, Miss R. was taken with phthisis, of which she died. In less than two years afterwards, all three apprentices died of phthisis, although in the family-history of each no trace of phthisis existed ; and the parents, brothers, and sisters of two are alive and well at this time. Another interesting case was related by Mr. G. F. Blake of Mosely, Birmingham, in which a perfectly healthy child, with a family-history free from all trace of tubercle, was reported as be- coming infected by a phthisical nurse, and having died with profuse hemoptysis, after the disease had run a rapid course. Dr. Porter gives the following facts which have come under his own observation. He says, “‘In more than three hundred cases of phthisis, I have kept a record of the family-history, and find that fifty-one per cent of this number were of families in which some other case had occurred. The inquiry extended no farther than to first-cousins. Heretofore this would be accepted as evidence in favor of the heredity of phthisis, but I now believe that in many of these cases the disease was acquired by the carrying of the products of disease to a subject whose physical condition favored its recep- tion and development. I recall the case of Mrs. L., in whose fam- ily was notrace of phthisis. Before her marriage, and for several years after, she was the ideal of a healthy woman. Two children were born. Her husband, a well-known city official, had phthisis. Her attendance upon him was constant, and for some months be- fore his death she and the younger child were with him night and day. When called to attend him, I found that he had been substi- tuting for the ordinary cuspidore a newspaper spread upon the floor at his bedside, and this would be loaded with sputa each morning. The case was rapid. The husband died, and within eighteen months Mrs. L. and the younger child also died from phthisis ; while the elder daughter, who was comparatively little in the sick-room, still lives, and is well and strong. I have the notes of other instances almost as instructive, but this will suffice.” The author thinks that the disease may be conveyed in two prin- cipal ways, — first, by air carrying particles of disease into the respi- ratory tract; second, by food from infected sources, through the alimentary tract. In reference to these propositions, he says, ‘‘ The first of these propositions is, I think, proven. Not only are the experiments and records here given powerful affirmations, but there is in the profession a steadily increasing belief in its truth which would require much more negative testimony than has yet been offered. I would not be misunderstood. I do not think that as yet we can sustain the statement that phthisis is contagious, — ac- quired by mere contact ; or infectious, if the term be limited to im- ply a hidden subtile miasm communicating the disease : but I do hold that particles of matter from the site of disease in a phthisical patient may be carried, planted in suitable soil, and incite phthisis. I cannot think that all are liable to so acquire the disease. I would go further, and say that probably only those may so contract phthisis who have lowered their vitality through previous sickness or long watching in the sick-room, or those who have local congestion or inflammation in the respiratory tract. The fixation of a minute par- ticle of dried sputum from a phthisical cavity, upon a point of irri- tation in the respiratory tract of a non-phthisical patient, may con- stitute an effective inoculation.” In reference to the second proposition, that phthisis may be caused by eating the flesh of tuberculous animals, or drinking the milk of tuberculous cows, he thinks this is to be received with the same limitations as the first; i.e., that there are conditions which favor the development already existing in the individual. He offers the following suggestions for the prevention of the extension of the disease: there should be frequent change of the atmos- phere in the sick-room, complete disinfection of all clothing or ves- sels holding expectorated material; and the close confinement of any relative of, or attendant upon, a phthisical patient should be forbidden. He believes the day is at hand when the physician will recognize that it is as much his duty to examine the food that his patient eats, or the milk that is ordered for the sick child, as it is his province to see that the drugs he prescribes are pure and well compounded. SCIENCE [Vor x “Noivarg BOOK - REVIEWS. The Nervous System and the Mind. By CHARLES MERCIER, M.B. London and New York, Macmillan. 8°. THE announcement of the publication of this work raised great expectations, not alone because, in the interesting development through which the problem of the relations of body and mind is now passing, every promising contribution is certain to arouse great interest, but especially because any systematic treatise written some- what from the psychological point of view is a great desideratum. The contents of such a work would be suggested by its function, which should be to serve as a propzdeutic for the study of psychol- ogy, as well as to make clear to the general reader the position of modern science on this all-important question. Dr. Mercier’s book does not fill this gap, nor was it intended to doso. His object is a simpler and a narrower one. Realizing the aversion of students of insanity to studies of the normal manifestations of mind, he is de- sirous of preparing for their special use a work that shall show how unscientific it is to attempt to restore a disordered mind to its nor- mal functioning, without a precise and systematic knowledge of what those normal functions are. The object is certainly a most worthy one, and the more so because Dr. Mercier makes no secret of advocating the study of the philosophical aspects of mind on the part of medical students ; not that he has any intentions of deluging them with metaphysics, but simply to impress them with the inti- mate relation of the problems with one aspect of which their specialty is concerned to the broad culture problems of humanity. When we pass from the design to the execution, the work begins to be a disappointment. To enable the prospective reader of the work to judge of the validity of this verdict, a brief sketch of the contents of the book may be of service. The work contains three parts ; the first treating of the physical and physiological functions. of the nervous system, the second of its psychological functions, and the third of mind. Before starting upon the consideration of nervous function, we are gravely warned to bear well in mind the supreme and absolute distinction between mental and physicab phenomena.: the two are utterly heterogeneous, disparate, incom- mensurable ; and all that we know is the parallelism that exists between them. With this distinction and this concomitance well impressed, the author is sanguine enough to believe that “the student will enter onthe study of psychology with half his difficul- ties already surmounted.” Under the head of the physical func- tions of nervous tissue, the cells and fibres are represented as mole- cules acted upon by a force, and the attempt is made, by the aid of more or less ingenious analogies, to demonstrate the possibility of the pervous system as we know it acting as the special agent of psychological functions. The most interesting and valuable por- tion of the book is undoubtedly that on the physiological functions of the nervous system; and much of this value is derived from the incorporation of Dr. Hughlings-Jackson’s views on the interpreta— tion of movements in terms of nervous discharges. The important distinction between ‘central’ and ‘peripheral’ movements is ad- mirably described. On entering the psychological portion of the work, we feel at once the atmosphere that surrounds disciples of Mr. Herbert Spencer. As long as the general line of thought due to Mr. Spencer is applied to the evolution of conduct, or the ever- improving and more and more elaborate adaptation of organism to- environment, the result is in more than one sense successful ; but in the chapters on ‘ The Constitution of Mind,’ on ‘ Thought,’ on ‘Feeling,’ and in the three chapters on ‘ Classification of the Feel- ings,’ the interest becomes a very formal and theoretical one, and amounts to little more than a digest of Spencer somewhat modified and elaborated. It will thus be seen that Dr. Mercier presumes a knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system on the part of his readers, and wants to interest them in one par- ticular aspect of their interpretation. This certainly does not ap- peal to the student of insanity. Not only does Dr. Mercier neglect to consider how very much of what he regards as most important is liable to be entirely modified by future research; but there is a vast and ever-increasing material from which it is being attempted. by strictly scientific methods to build up a science of psychology that shall immediately appeal, by its intrinsic importanee, to stu- dents of psychiatry, and of this development Dr. Mercier takes no APRIL 27, 1888. ] account. This does not detract from the value of the work as a presentation of the ‘dynamics of the human organism,’ but it cer- tainly does seriously lower its value to the student of mental dis- ease or of psychology in general. The great desideratum of a work on the relations of body and mind that shall do justice to all the various lines of advance along which research is progressing, and shall succeed in unifying the presentation thus given with perhaps a proper historic setting, re- mains for the work of another hand. Whether or not the time is ripe for such a contribution is certainly an open question. Bettrége zur Geophystk. Abhandlungen aus dem geograpischen Seminar der Universitat Strassburg. Ed. by Prof. G. Ger- land. Vol.I. Stuttgart, Schweizerbart. 8°. THE present volume is of great interest, even setting aside the scientific value of the papers contained in it. It illustrates the method of geography-teaching at German universities better than any elaborate description could do. As indicated in the title, it contains the results of researches of members of the geographical Seminar. The object of these institutions, which exist at every German university, is to teach students the methods of original in- vestigation. The volume under review shows that this method leads to very valuable results. In the introduction, Professor Ger- land gives his views on the aim and scope of geography. He is one of the few geographers who would exclude altogether what has been called ‘anthropogeography ° from the field of geographical re- searches. We believe that the author, one of Germany's most em- inent ethnologists, was led to this conclusion by his intimate knowl- edge of the methods of ethnology. Recognizing that the latter are anthropologic, psychologic, or linguistic, he has no confidence in the generalizing speculations on the influence of the character of a country upon its inhabitants. On the other hand, he does not con- sider the methods of geology, so far as they are founded on paleon- tology, as the proper held of geographical studies. and confines the latter to the study of the problems of geophysics ; i.e., the study of the physical and chemical forces as acting upon the earth. The essays: contained in this volume treat exclusively this class of prob- lems. Dr. H. Blink contributes an elaborate paper on the winds and currents of the region of the Lesser Sunda Islands, which he tries to explain according to Zoppritz’s theory of currents and by considering the tides of this region. The influence of accumula- tions of polar ice during the glacial period is ably discussed by Dr. H. Hergesell. He shows that the changes in the levels of the sea are far too great to be explained by the attraction of polar ice and by the decrease of the amount of ocean-water, caused by their formation. The same author shows that it is extremely improba- ble that a river could reverse its course by the attractive action of the ice of the glacial period. The concluding paper of the volume is a discussion and compilation on submarine earthquakes and vol- canic eruptions, by Dr. E. Rudolph, which is accompanied by very interesting maps. The author's discussion of the theory of the earthquake-waves is of great importance. These brief remarks show both that the volume contains papers of great importance, and the high standard of the work done in the seminary of the Uni- versity of Strassburg. It may be expected that the subsequent volumes will be of equal interest and importance. The Geological Hestory of Plants. New York, Appleton. 12°. By Str J. WILLIAM DAWSON. THE student of plant-history will find in this volume a compact statement of much of our present knowledge of paleeobotany, — a department of science in which the author has for many years oc- cupied a distinguished position as an original investigator. A work of the kind here presented has long been needed, and cannot but meet with much favor from those who have earnestly and often vainly attempted to unite the fragmentary chapters that are found scattered throughout geological treatises and disconnected reports of learned societies. The individual chapters of the book before us not only treat of the geological succession of plant-forms through- out the various geological periods, but enter-into a discussion of the structure of the more prominent types of fossil plants, geo- graphical distribution, the conditions attending appearance and ex- tinction, climatic changes, and the evolution of specific types. SCHENGE: 203 The consideration of the theoretical questions constitutes the weakest portion of the work, and probably many will agree that the omission of much that it contains would have proved an advan- tage rather than otherwise. Professor Dawson apparently is still an anti-evolutionist, as the following quotation (p. 268), unfortu- nately of that character which bespeaks determined opposition to: an idea, seems to show: ‘‘I can conceive nothing more unreason- able than the statement sometimes made, that it is illogical or even absurd to suppose that highly organized beings could have been produced except, by derivation from previously existing organisms. This is begging the whole question at issue, depriving science of a noble department of inquiry,” etc. And further, on p. 271, we find clearly stated his adherence in belief to ‘‘ something not unlike the old and familiar idea of creation.” Sir William finds much difficulty in explaining non-variation through time on any evolutionary hypothesis of slow modification, and, as one of his fozuts de részstance, refers to the oft-quoted identity existing between the plants of the Egyptian tombs and species now living, —a point which has also been forcibly insisted upon by Mr. Carruthers, president of the Linnzan Society; but why we should have expected to find a change in such a compara- tively brief period is not stated. Whatever position the author himself may hold in the matter of evolution, it appears more than likely that the intelligent student of his work will agree with a recent critic that ‘‘ the evolution of species. from species is apparent in every page of Sir J. W. Dawson’s work.” Vankee Girls tn Zulu Land. By LOUISE VESCELIUS-SHELDON. New York, Worthington. 12°. $2.25. THE author tells the experiences of three American ladies travel- ling in South Africa in so charming a style and good humor, and with such vividness, that it is very pleasant and instructive to fol- low her on her adventurous expeditions through the Cape Colony and the Dutch republics. While her description of Cape Town, of its European, Malayan, and African inhabitants, attracts us, the book becomes even more interesting when she describes her jour- ney by stage-coach from Beaufort to the diamond-mines of Kim- berley, and the social life at this place. From Kimberley they vis- ited Potchefstrom and Pretoria in Transvaal, which was at the time of their visit occupied by the English. The author describes the prevailing discontent, and is full of praise of the beauties of the Transvaal. She is equally enchanted by the inhabitants and climate of the Orange Free State. From here the enterprising ladies made a long journey by ox-wagon; and the character of the land, the violent thunder-storms and sudden floods, are so graphically de- scribed, that the reader will feel well repaid. The attractiveness of the book is principally founded on the simplicity of the manner in which the author’s experiences are told. Although it is not filled with statistics and treatises on the forms of government, it creates, by the truthfulness of the descriptions, a vivid and instructive pic- ture of the forms of life and state of affairs in South Africa. Irish Wonders. By D. R. MCANALLY, Jun. Mifflin, & Co., 1888. 8°. $2. THE author, who paid a lengthy visit to Ireland, in course of which he traversed the island from end to end, has collected a con— siderable amount of Irish folk-lore, which he presents in this vol- ume. Most of the tales are attached to certain places which the author visited, and, according to his statement, they are told in the same form in which the Irish story-teller told them: “Go where you will in Ireland, the story-teller is there, and on slight provoca- tion will repeat his narrative ; amplifying, explaining, embellishing, till from a single fact a connected history is evolved, giving motives, particulars, action, and result, the whole surrounded by a rosy wealth of rustic imagery and told with dramatic force an actor might envy.” The story-tellers who told Mr. McAnally these le- gends mixed a good deal of politics with their tales, abusing the English landlord, and pleading for home rule. The author inserts- the tunes and texts of a number of songs in his book, which are of considerable interest, the fairy dance on p. 26 being of particular value. The piano accompaniment of the song on p. 164 can hardly be approved. The book contains a number of legends re- ferring to Satan and the saints, others on the pooka, fairies, andi Boston, Houghton, 204 the banshee. It is of some interest to see how a good matter-of- fact fisherman has deprived the legend of ‘ Gray Man’s Isle’ of all that is wonderful. The book is of considerable importance as showing the remarkable transformation which legends undergo under the in- fluence of modern ideas. A Manual of German Prefixes and Suffixes. WELL. New York, Holt. 16°. THE present collection of German prefixes is designed as a prac- tical aid to students of. German, and meets this purpose very well. It gives to the student a clearer sense of the meaning of many German words than even the best dictionaries can do. The man- ual is founded principally on Sanders’s and Grimm’s dictionaries of the German language. The meaning of each prefix and suffix is defined very clearly ; and the slight variations of sense conveyed by suffixes — as -mdss¢g and -gemdss, or -/eim and -chen — are shown by well-selected examples. As the book is designed for practical purposes, no attempt has been made to give the etymology of the prefixes and suffixes. The manual will be of great value to stu- dents of German. By J.S. BLACK- Principles and Practice of Morality. ROBINSON. By EZEKIEL GILMAN Boston, Silver, Rogers, & Co. 12%. $1.50. THIS work by the president of Brown University consists of the lectures which he has given in past years to his classes in ethics, and, as a text-book on the science, it has some decided merits. The style is good, to begin with, being clear and direct, and free from ostentation. The author is good-tempered also; and though he sometimes criticises other thinkers, and expresses his dissent from them in decided terms, he treats them all with eminent fair- ness. The book opens with a preliminary discussion of the object and scope of ethics; then follow a series of chapters on conscience, moral law, the will, the ultimate ground of obligation, and other topics in the theory of morals; and a brief account of the leading duties of man closes the volume. The chapter on the ultimate ground of obligation is, of course, the most important of all; and we are obliged to say that we do not find it satisfactory. Dr. Robinson examines the various theories that have been propounded by other writers, including the intuitional, the utilitarian, and others, all of which he rejects for one reason or another, and then gives it as his own view that the ultimate ground of moral obligation is to be found in the nature of God as a perfectly righteous being. But, surely, if we have no ground of obligation in our own souls, if such ground exists only in the nature of God, we can have no means of knowing that God is righteous. If the ground of right and duty is in God’s nature alone, then when we say that God is righteous, we can only mean that he always acts according to his own nature ; which might with equal truth be predicated of every thing else in the universe. We do not think that Dr. Robinson has contributed any thing to the solution of the fundamental ethical problem; and there are other points in his work to which objections might easily be raised. Yet it contains much that is suggestive; and it will doubtless be useful to students and also for popular reading. A Hrstory of Political Economy. With preface by E. J. James. 8°. A HISTORY of political economy in the English language was undoubtedly needed, for the existing works on the subject were by no means satisfactory. We have many good histories of practical economy in its various branches; but a good history of economic theories, such as Mr. Ingram here undertakes to give us, has long been a desideratum. In many respects this treatise is excellent. The author shows a very wide acquaintance with the literature of the subject in all the leading languages, and he has evidently given a great deal of study to all the various schools. He sketches in brief the course of economic thought in ancient and medieval times, but agrees with all other writers in recognizing economic science as strictly a product of modern times. He remarks that the mercan- tile system was the natural outgrowth of certain social conditions acting on unscientific minds, and then proceeds to trace the origin and progress of scientific economics, beginning with the physiocrats and other writers of the eighteenth century. The leading contrib- utors to the science are all passed in review, and the works of By JOHN KELLS INGRAM. New York, Macmillan, 1888. SCL NCE: [Vou. XI. No. 273 most of them well characterized. Unfortunately, however, Mr. Ingram is an extreme partisan of the historical school; and his partisanship has led him to underestimate the work of some of the great English writers, especially of Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill, whose defects he sees far more clearly than their merits. We find no fault with the author for treating his subject from the stand- point of his own school ; but then he ought to do it in good temper, and without that irritation against men of opposite views which this book sometimes exhibits. Nevertheless, the work contains much valuable information, and will fill a useful place. The Study of Polttics. Roberts. 16°. By WILLIAM P. ATKINSON. 50 cents. — Boston, THIs little work is the introduction to a course of lectures on constitutional history, delivered by the author at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. What particular benefit its publication will confer upon the general public we are unable to see. The book is written in bad temper throughout, with constant inuendoes against the men and classes with whom the author disagrees. It is mainly devoted to practical politics and the duties of citizenship, with very little in it that can be called scientific. Moreover, what Mr. Atkinson says about the corruption of public life and the duty of good citizens to engage in political work has been said so often by the newspapers in all parts of the country, that its repetition in a book at this late day seems to be unnecessary. If, instead of such matter as this, Mr. Atkinson had given us an introduction to the political and social sciences and to the proper mode of studying them, his work would have been of far more value. ‘A Manual of Physiology. A Text-Book for Students of Medicine, By GERALD F. YEO, M.D. 12 eee YEO’S manual was originally written to supply an elementary treatise on physiology for the series of students’ manuals issued by this firm of publishers. Professor Yeo has succeeded in supplying a book which is well adapted to the wants of medical students. He has fully carried out the task which he undertook; viz., to avoid theories which have not borne the test of time, and such details of methods as are unnecessary for junior students. He has also omitted the history of the progressive steps in the growth of physi- ological science and the names of authorities, all of which would be but confusing tothe student. In doing this he has taken care not to omit any important facts that are, necessary to a clear under- standing of the principles of physiology. The first edition, which appeared in 1884, being exhausted, a second has been prepared in which all important advances have been noted. The principal change which we observe is the entire revision of the chapters on the central nervous system, and their fuller illustration by means of drawings of the microscopical structure of the spinal cord. Yeo’s manual has from the first stood in the front rank, but this recent edition will cause it to occupy a still higher position among the manuals of physiology. 3d ed. Philadelphia, Blakiston. Education in Bavaria. New York, Industrial Education Association. By Sir PHILIP MAGNUS. 122. WE hear a great deal about education in Germany, and not un- frequently overlook the fact that in matters of considerable impor- tance the practice of the several German states is at variance. Prussia usually serves as the model for the rest, and but little atten- tion is directed to Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, and Saxony. As a member ofgthe late Royal Commission on Technical Instruction, Sir Philip Magnus was led to make a careful examination of the educational practice in Bavaria, and it has been deemed of sufficient importance to be published as the second number of the Educa- tional Monograph Series. Mr. Magnus suggests that the title is somewhat too general for the subject of which his paper treats ; for his main object has been to show his English and American readers what is meant by a ‘school system’ in which each element bears a definite relation to allthe others. The Bavarian school sys- tem is a typical one of these, in which organization and interde- pendence are pushed as far as they will go. The plan of the sys- tem is made very clear by an illustrative diagram. The paper is extremely compact, and does not lend itself to abridgment or con- APRIL 27, 1888.] densation for the purpose of a review. It is to be warmly com- mended to all students of comparative educational methods, and will be found fruitful in suggestions. It closes with this signifi- cant sentence, which, while applied by the author to England alone, is capable of extension to the United States: “In the zigzag and indirect way in which progress is made in my own country, we are, I believe, approaching to a condition in which the State will exert more and more influence and control over secondary and higher education, and I am inclined to think that the change will be to the advantage of our schools, and, on the whole, a gain to our teachers.” Outlines of Practical Phystology. By WILLIAM STIRLING, M.D. Philadelphia, Blakiston. 12°. $2.25. THIS work was written to supply the wants of the students at Owens College, Manchester, in which institution Professor Stirling occupies the chairs of physiology and histology. The experiments described are those which are performed by every member of the medical class, and are such as to illustrate all the important facts connected with human physiology. The book is a most practical one, the author having constantly borne in mind that ‘the student of to-day becomes the practitioner of to-morrow.” The illustrations are numerous, well selected, and admirably executed, Taken as a whole, the ‘Outlines’ will be found to meet the wants of all teachers of practical physiology, not only in medical colleges, but in other institutions where such instruction forms a part of the curriculum. Manual of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutzcal Chemistry. By CHARLES F. HEEBNER, Ph.G. New York, The Author, 5 Gold St. 12°. $2. THIS manual has been prepared by the author to be used as a class-book or note-book by the students at the various colleges of pharmacy. It is not intended to take the place of lectures in phar- macy, nor to replace the many exhaustive works on this subject, but rather as a book to be used by those who have already gone over the ground, whether students or pharmacists, and who desire, either as a preparation for examination or for other reasons, to review the whole subject in a condensed form. For this purpose it seems to be well adapted, though its usefulness would be en- hanced were it provided with an index in addition to the table of contents. NOTES AND NEWS. THE prompt and favorable report of the judiciary committee of the National House of Representatives on the international copy- right bill has greatly encouraged the friends of that measure. The passage of the bill by the Senate during the present session of Con- gress has not been in much doubt, although the consideration of it has been postponed from ‘time to time on account of the urgency of other business. But the House of Representatives, it was feared, would hardly find time to deal with the subject. It may not now, but the unanimity of the committee, and the earnestness of some of the most influential Democratic members, in their advocacy of it, have greatly encouraged the friends of the measure. The bill may not become a law this year, but there is every reason to hope that the present Congress will not expire without its being placed upon the statute-book. — The third field-meeting of the Indiana Academy of Sciences will take place at Wyandotte Cave, Crawford County, Ind., on Thursday, May 3, 1888. —A few wild animals recently placed on exhibition near the National Museum in Washington form the nucleus of a zoological collection that may rank, as the museum does, among the most im- portant in the country. Recognizing the importance of preserving at the national capital living specimens of the native fauna of this country, Mr. Beck introduced in the Senate, on Monday, a bill to establish a zodlogical park in Washington. The bill creates a commission, which is directed to secure one hundred acres of land bordering on Rock Creek, about one mile from the city, to prepare the grounds and erect suitable buildings upon it. The park is then to be turned over to the regents of the Smithsonian Institution SCHEIN Ci: 205 for their future custody and care. The site indicated is one of the most beautiful in the District of Columbia. It is composed of roll- ing ground, with the beautiful Rock Creek flowing through it, and it is adjacent to Woodley Park, one of the most charming of the recent additions to Washington. A street-railway is already pro- jected to it. — Thomas Hampson, proof-reader and editor of publications of the Geological Survey in Washington, an active member of the Cosmos Club and Anthropological Society, and the working editor of the Anthropologzst, a new magazine recently established by the latter organization, died on Monday morning, after a short illness. Mr. Hampson was a man of great experience and rare accomplish- ments, especially as a philologist, linguist, and grammarian. As a careful editor, he had few equals. He distinguished himself years ago in the Bureau of Education, and has fully met Major Powell’s expectations since he secured his services for the National Survey. — A Sydney (Australia) newspaper reports that in March the steamer ‘ Titus,’ when in the vicinity of Cape St. George, on the south-eastern coast of Australia, encountered two heavy seas which rolled on board, and, immediately after, the decks were found to be covered with a matter resembling red sand. The seas flooded the decks and chart-room, but did no serious damage. The seas were probably caused by a submarine earthquake, which stirred up the mud at the bottom of the ocean; but the phenomenon described is a very unusual one. — In order to centralize in a single focus all the results of studies devoted to African languages, Rev. C. G. Biittner, inspector of East African missions in Berlin, has founded a Zeitschrift fiir afrtkanische Sprachen (A. Asher & Co., publishers), of which the first quarterly number has been issued. It offers a series of inter- esting documents, of myths, popular songs, and vocabularies; and the following may give an idea of the contents, most of which are laid down in the Lepsius missionary alphabet. Chuo cha utenz¢ isa long poem in an ancient Suahili dialect. The late Dr. L. Krapf, who transmitted it to the German Oriental Society in Halle, thought it was a translation from Arabian. It is written in the Arabian ¢a/zéh script, and was transliterated by Krapf. The portion published in the first number holds 894 lines, but contains no trans- lation. C. H. Richardson, a missionary among the Bakundu of the Cameroons, gives a short grammatical sketch of their language. J. G. Christaller, who formerly conducted missions on the Gold Coast, publishes myths concerning creation, origin of man, deity, cause of death, from different African nations, with interlinear translation, free translation, and linguistic notes. From Rev. Endemann we get song-texts of the Sotho people of a very curious description, and not comprehensible without the comments sub- joined. Then follow small word-lists of two languages spoken near Kilima-Ndjaro Mountain and a specimen of H. Brincker’s ‘Dictionary of the Otjiherero and Objambo Languages,’ now going through the press of T. O. Weigel, publisher in Leipzig. The first number contains only specialties, and of special knowledge all gen- eral knowledge and science are built up. This commencement augurs well for the future of the periodical, which is in scientific hands, and will encourage all the missionaries in that distant land to make their investigations public. The Germans and English are always busy in bringing the results of their scientific researches in linguistics before the public; while others, many Americans among them, are better known for their inclination to lock up use- ful material in their drawers and strong-boxes. —Mr. L. D. Allen of New London, Conn., has deposited in the National Museum at Washington a number of Indian curiosities collected by his son, Mr. J. Isham Allen of Montana. Among them is a painted elk-skin once possessed by Pretty Eagle, a former chief of.the Crows. It is covered with the figures of eight mounted warriors, and several on foot, all rudely drawn, but of bold and vig- orous design. They tell of the victories of the chief over his ene- mies. There is also a war-bonnet, which is composed of the entire skin and down of a swan, and is ornamented with eagles’ plumage and wampum. It was captured by a Crow chief from the North Assiniboins. Another article is a bow and arrow, the former property of a Crow chief, Bean-in-the-Water, and a medicine-horn 206 made of a buffalo-horn, and ornamented with a white weasel’s skin. —A bottle thrown overboard near Pernambuco, Brazil, July 28, 1885, to assist in tracing the direction of ocean-currents, was found at Little Cayman, W.I., March 1, 1888, about thirty-two hundred miles from the starting-point. A note made upon this report at the Hydrographic Office, Navy Department, Washington, says that the bottle probably drifted along the Spanish Main into the Gulf of Darien, thence due north across the Caribbean Sea, passing around Jamaica between it and San Domingo and Cuba, and thence about west by north to Little Cayman, passing over a distance of about four thousand miles. Taking the average of the current at two knots an hour, the voyage occupied less than two and one-half months; so that the bottle was probably on the beach at Little ‘Cayman more than two years before it was discovered. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. *.* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer's name is én all cases required as proof of good faith. Twenty copies of the number containing his communication will be furnished Sree to any correspondent on request. The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of the journal. Formation of the Explosive Chloride of Nitrogen by Electrolysis. ON the 14th of this month I made the discovery that the chlo- ride of nitrogen, a dangerously unstable compound, is formed during the electrolysis of a solution of ammonium chloride (sal- ammoniac). The difficulty and uncertainty of its formation by electrolytic analysis will be understood when it is remembered that nitrogen chloride is the resulting product only when numerous powerful chemical affinities are in equilibrium. The operation may be successfully conducted as follows: a saturated solution of ammonium chloride (temperature 7° C.) con- tained in a suitable apparatus is electrolyzed between platinum electrodes, care being taken to shield the solution from direct sun- light. After the decomposition has proceeded for some time, — chlorine being evolved at the positive electrode in minute bubbles, which are absorbed by the solution, — small particles of a light- yellow liquid, with a most peculiar oily appearance, will be observed to collect on the surface. These soon combine to form small glob- ules, which sink slowly to the bottom of the vessel. If a warm solution be electrolyzed in a brightly lighted room, no such results will be obtained; the nascent chlorine decomposing the solvent water to form hydrochloric acid. As this substance is one of a class of compounds which explode violently by a rapid dissociation of their constituent elements, the following precautions are necessary to insure safety: Ist, the temperature of the solution must not be allowed to rise above 10° C.; 2d, the apparatus must be of the strongest construction, scrupu- lously clean, and not exposed to an intense light ; 3d, if a power- ful battery is used, it must be disconnected from the apparatus immediately upon the formation of the first drop of the explosive; and, 4th, it is prudent for the operator to protect himself by means of globes and a strong mask. The chloride of nitrogen as thus prepared is a highly volatile, limpid, oily liquid, with an extremely pungent odor. It evaporates rapidly when exposed to the air, producing an unwholesome vapor. The stability of this substance seems to be in an inverse ratio to the rapidity of its formation, the maximum of safety being at- tained by the production of about four drops an hour. If the electro-motive force of the battery be but little in excess of that re- quired for complete electrolysis, the explosive may be allowed to collect in the apparatus, where it will be gradually and harmlessly decomposed by the electric current. This dangerous compound was first prepared in the year 1811, by Pierre Louis Dulong, an eminent French physicist, during a series of experiments on the chlorine compounds. Owing to the serious injuries he received on that occasion, Dulong thought it best to keep the discovery a secret, lest others should be tempted to repeat his perilous experiments. This precaution had, however, SGIENCE: [Vor XI.