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SCIENCE
Pee ILLUSTRATED JOUKNAE
(QELS SIGUBIO™ Ve (SIL)
VOLUME XI
JANUARY—JUNE 1888
NEW YORK
THE SCIENCE COMPANY
1888
505.73
A.
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
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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,
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[Vor. XI. No. 259
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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
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INDO-EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.
GREEK.
ILLYRIAN,
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SLAVIC.
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BULGARIAN.
SLOVAK.
RUSSIAN AND RUSNIAK.
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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.
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Queries. eee - om clas _ Si
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NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 3, 1888.
SINGLE Copies, TEN CENTS.
VoL. XI. No. 261. $3.50 PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE.
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Sanitary Supervision of Schoolhouses and Pupils. — Newly dis-
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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
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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
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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.”
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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
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“The present antl growing regard for supernatural
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THE COMMISSIONERS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS of Baltimore, Md.,
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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
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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
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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
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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 ”
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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
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SCIENCE,
[VoL XI.
¥UST PUBLISHED :
The Geological Evidences of Evolution.
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which less than 50 copies now remain, presents for
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Town Geology: The Lesson of the Phila-
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The Geographical and Geological Distri-
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12M0, pp. 435. Price, $2.00.
Explorations on the West Coast of Florida
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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%
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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°.
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N. D. C. HODGES,
474 Lafayette Place,
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[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.
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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
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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.
New York,
The Manual Training School.
374p. 8°. $2.
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Rev. E. L. Kelly, of Paterson, N. J., writing of Dr
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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:
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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-
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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.
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p " Chicago, publish the Haxdbook of Volapik,
by Chas. E. Sprague, $1.00, and an A éridged Grammar
of Volapik. by Prof. Kerckhoffs, adapted to the use of
English-speaking people by Karl Dornbusch. 20 cents.
Mailed on receipt of price.
SCIENCE:
= aan ale
UNEQUALLED for CEMENTING et,
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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.
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Boxes, $12, $10, $8. Orchestra stalls, $1.50.
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The eminent prestidigitateur, wizard, and humorist.
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EVERY NIGHT at 8:15, production of Shakspeare’s
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MATINEES WEDNESDAYS and SATURDAYS.
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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
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technic Institute . A bil al aga . 126 |
One Year of Interstate Commerce Control
Appleton Morgan 127 |
Mental Science. i
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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
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| Letters to the Editor.
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Vermin-Eaters E, Lewis Sturtevant 134
Landing Eskimo Boats OVD ME 134:
Dried Heads among the Jivaros O. T, Mason 134.
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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
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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.”
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Introduction price, 64 cents.
YOUMAN'S DESCRIPTIVE BOTANY.
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Introduction price, $1.20.
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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
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OTATE CHE : SCIENCE, March 16, 1888. No. 267.
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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.
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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
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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,
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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.
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THE LONDON COMEDY SUCCESS,
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ALLACK’S. THIRD WEEK.
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MARCH 23,
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FANNY DAVENPORT.
IN VICTORIEN SARDOU’S MASTERPIECE,
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Boxes, $12, $10, $8. Orchestra stalls, $1.50.
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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
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AUGUSTIN DALY.
MATINEES WEDNESDAYS and SATURDAYS.
GTANDARD THEATRE. Broadway and 33d st.
97TH TIME. LAST WEEK.
STEELE MACKAYE IN
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*,* 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.
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Second exhibition of Paintings now open.
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Ajeeb, the Mystifying Chess Automaton.
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IF THE AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS could remain in Washing-
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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.
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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.
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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. ]
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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.
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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 Eeoule:. 2.00} 4.80! 3.00
Health and Home..... 1.00| 4 25] 2.25
Herald of Health...........+.-++--+ 1.00] 4.25] 2.25
Illustrated London News (Amer. | |
YEPrint)....- see cee eneere --| 4.00] 6.80) 5.00
Independent, The.. 3.00) 5.80] 4.00
Inter Ocean, The.. I.00| 4.25] 2.2
Iron 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
Judge sdd00d0q000q00000 -.| 4.00] 6.80] 5.00
L’ Art. t2.00| 14.80] 13.00
Life... ++| 5-00] 7.80] 6.00
Lippincott’ s Magazine. is 3.00} 5.80] 4.00
Littell’s Living Age.. --| 8.00) 10.80) 9.00
Little Men and Women . seer OO|l14u25|(en2n25)
London Quarterly peogDoG --| 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...... | x.00] 4 25] 2.25
Microscope, The. v:| T.00] 4.25) 2.25
Nature.... ..-...++. -| 6.00) 8.80) 7.00
New Princeton Review.. 3.00] 5.80| 4.00
North American Review 5.00] 7.80) 6.00
@uting eee 3.00] 5.80! 4.00
Overland Monthly. 4:00} 6.80] 5.00
PERE doo: dude 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
Portfolio, The........- 7.50| 10.30] 8.50
Practitioner...... 3-50] 6.30| 4.50
Public Opinion ... 3.00] 5.80] 4.00
Buc keeretett-ret= 4.00) 6.80) 5.00
Puck (German)... 5.00] 7 80) 6.00
Quarterly Review (London 4.00} 6.80] 5.00
@ueriestyepeceeesssihe 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...........25 0 s.+5- 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. 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. 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-
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 & CoO.
a COOD NEWS
To LADIES.
G emit manmonannee of-
fered. Now’s your time to get
as ions up orders for our celebrated
ar hee Teas and Coffees, and secure
COMPANY, a beautiful Gold Band or Moss
s : Rose China Tea Set, Dinner Set,
Gold vand Moss Rose Toilet Set, Watch, ‘Brass Lamp,
or Webster's Dictionary. For full particulars address
THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO.,
P: O. Box 289. 81 and 33 IOAN St., New York.
W. H. WALMSLEY & C0.
SUCCESSORS TO
R. & J. BECK,
1016 Chestnut Street, Phiia,
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.
SPRING AND SUMMER
DRESS GOODS.
JAMES McOREERY & 60.
are now offering the following
lines of Dress Goods:
Check and Striped Cheviots 44-
ineb, 75¢c.; 54-inch, 85c. and
$1.00; worth $1.00 and $1.25
The above are remarkable value.
ORDERS | Boe 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.
MAP-MAKING.
All publishers or others de-
siring to have maps made,
either from relief plates or by
lithograph, should write to us
placing
Any
work entrusted to us will be
for estimates before
their orders elsewhere.
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.
‘The 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 paid
weekly indemnity. policy-holders nearly
$11,000,000. All policies non-forfeitable. All claims
paid, without discount, and immediately on receipt of
satisfactory proof.
A TEMPORARY BINDER
for Science 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, Scfence is
always convenient for reference.
aG BINDER
N. D. C. 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.
Imperial edition...........--.-. 10.00] 12.80] 11.00
Gelatine ‘‘ 7-00] 9.80} 8.00
Regular “ 6.00] 8.80] 7.00
American Garden..... I.00| 4.25) 2.25
American Journal of P 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
Atlan tics rieieieteeicesteteteretelelsicl-t(= 4.00] 6.80] 5.00
Babyhoodscvjeccscscenssersisises = I 50| 4-30] 2.50
Babylandpere ecco seebeiecirrcrr +50) 3-75| 1-75
Brads treetishrlatericlele elles steleredsieieve 5.00| 7-80] 6.00
Brain sect eeceeeecitleriercteis l= 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 ... 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. HODGES,
44 Lafayette Place,
New York.
eee
111
Amusements of New York.
YCEUM THEATRE.
DANIEL FROHMAN......... 060000 -- Manager.
Cor. 4th Avenue and 23d St.
Malls.) WIPE,
A New Play by D. Betasco and H. C. DE MILLE.
Preceded by............Editha’s Burglar.
Evenings, 8:15, Saturday Matinees 2
DAD ISON-SQUARE THEATRE.
MR. A. M. PALMER,
Evenings at 8:30.
Sole Manager.
Saturday matinée at 2.
PARTNERS.
A SUCCESS, A PRONOUNCED SUCCESS. —
HERALD.
ALLACK’S.
Under the direction of Mr. HENRY E. ABBEY.
LAST SEASON OF THE WALLACK COMPANY.
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.
BroADway THEATRE.
ONES 41ST-ST., AND 7TH-AV.
Manager....... _.... 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 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.
MIAUSSIUBIB OESIE,
By SYDNEY ROSENFELD.
MATINEE SATURDAY.
OCKSTADER’S THEATRE.
Dockstader, Shepard & Graus, Proprietors.
FOURTH WEEK.
Crowded Houses. A Success. Without Doubt.
CORINNE.
INIMITABLE AND UNSURPASSED.
THE LATEST LONDON SUCCESS,
MONTE CRISTO, JUNIOR.
‘A great hit; Corinne witchery personified.’—SUN.
Sixty Artists, New Ballets, Costumes, &c.
Reserved Seats, 25c., 50c., 75c., and $1.
DEN MUSEE. 23d St., between sth and 6th Ave.
Open from rr to 11. Sunday, r to rz.
New Groups, New Paintings, New Attractions.
ERDELYI NACZI.
and his HUNGARIAN ORCHESTRA.
CONCERTS FROM 3tos5 AND 8 tox.
Second exhibition of Paintings now open.
Admission to all, 50 cents. Children 25 cents.
Ajeeb, the Mystifying Chess Automaton,
SCENIC:
UNEQUALLED for CEMENTING @& >.
wood, oun china, paper, leather, &c. Always DE pxces4,
mes
Teady for use. Pronounced strongest glue known.
IS MADE BY THE) E810" eD ALS. rcs
Gloucester, Mavs.
Y ussia \ ement Co. j Sample 20catamps
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 82 MILLION BOTTLES. Be
sure and get the genuine LePage’s made only by
RUSSIA CEMENT CO.
W.H. WALMSLEY & C0,
SUCCESSORS TO
RR. & 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 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.,
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on its excellence and wonderful cheapness. Among those to whom I have shown
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too Why, L press my trousers with them.’
“««My dear sir,’ said I, ‘you do not need the Manifold. Mr. Alden publishes
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The fifth volume of AtpEen’s Manirotp Cyctopepra, which has just
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teduced rates are offered to early purchasers ; the price for the set of
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The Literary Revolution Catalogue (84 pages) sent free on application.
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JOHN B. ALDEN, Publisher, NEW YORK:
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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
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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:
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conomy of Food 232
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Exploration of the Obangi-Welle 234 Tenth Annual Report of the Connection State Board of Health 238
9 9 5 9 Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Health of the State of
Scientific News in Washington. New Tee ia x Aa
The Work of the ‘Grampus’ , : 5 ARR | Evolution and its, Relationit to Relsioms Thought 5 230
Dictionary of North American Indian Tribes : . 236 | Accidents and Emergencies : . : + 239
Reclamation of Arid Lands : - 236 | Practical Education 6 0 0 - 240
Re-organization of the United States Fish Commission o ace | Not dN
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Health Matters. | ‘
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edness the White Blood- Coqancdles 5 r 5 BB | Is the Rainfall increasing on the Plains ? é A.W. Greely 240
Disparate Vision . : W. LeConte Stevens 241
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FRIDAY, MAY 18, 1888.
THERE IS NOW PENDING before Congress a proposition to enable
the United States Geological Survey to carry on the agricultural
work provided for by law. This movement was brought formally
forward by the California State Grange in October, 1887. It is
hardly necessary to dwell upon the desirability of collecting data as
to the agricultural value of land. Work of this kind has been done
in the States east of the Mississippi by State surveys and other in-
stitutions, but west of it Powell’s report on the arid lands is almost
the sole attempt. The work falls properly under the scope of a
geological survey, as in this case it requires only little additional
work to the topographical and geological surveys that are continu-
ously going on, while under any other department it would require
the organization of a new survey, and involve great expense. How
much good work can be done by geologists in this line, is shown by
the work of a number of State surveys, and outside the United
States by the survey of Newfoundland, which carries on also the
work of the land-office, and by several reports by members of the
Canadian Geological Survey, who, in the maps showing the results
of their reconnaissances, embody much that is of the greatest value
to the farmer. As a matter of fact, the surveyors of the land-office
in the United States as well as in Canada report in a general way
on the character of the country, but general statements of this kind
are not whatis wanted. Information on the character of the land
ought to be as definite as possible. If the lands were properly
classified as to their agricultural, pastoral, and industrial value, the
new settler would find at once the place suitable to his demands,
the farmer would know how he can best develop the resources of
his land, and great profit would thus accrue to the country in gen-
eral. We print in another place an article by Professor Hilgard
which shows the close relation between geological and agricultural
conditions, and thus proves that the agricultural survey is properly
a subdivision of the Geological Survey.
THE INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT BILL prepared by Senator
‘Chace has been passed by the United States Senate, and it is un-
derstood that the leaders of the House of Representatives intend to
give it a chance in that body before the close of the present session,
This is good news to American authors, publishers, and to all classes
of mechanics engaged directly or indirectly in the manufacture of
books. A few English authors and some English mechanics are
greatly excited over what is known as the ‘ manufacturing clause ’
of the bill, which requires that foreign books copyrighted in this
country shall be immediately published here, and printed from type
set up here; and the English printers have appointed a committee
to secure the amendment of the bill if possible. The authors who
have been loudest in their protests have been those, so says a cable-
despatch to the Philadelphia Press, who have never had one of their
books republished in this country, either with or without their con-
sent; those whose works are popular enough to find a market in
the United States being willing to submit to the extra tax which a
separate edition for America subjects them to, in consideration of
great advantages which the bill will confer upon them in enabling
them to prevent pirating of their works in this country, and placing
them in position to make terms with American publishers. The
English printers and other mechanics fear, that, if the Chace bill
becomes a law, many books copyrighted on both sides of the At-
lantic will be printed from plates made in America, and that their
business will therefore be injured. It is only necessary to say, that,
without the ‘manufacturing clause,’ no international copyright bill
would be likely to be passed by the American Congress in the next
ten years. Without it, the Chace bill would not even have been
considered during the present session. We hope the time will soon
come when the people of both countries will see their interest in
unconditional copyright in both for the literary productions of the
citizens of either, and the freest competition in the manufacture of
books that are read on both sides of the Atlantic. Then authors
will be allowed to have their books printed in London, or New
York, or Chicago, as may be most convenient or advantageous,
and readers will know that they are not paying unnecessarily high
prices for their reading-matter.
THE SUCCESS of the ‘land in severalty’ law as an agency for
the civilization of the Indians depends upon many conditions, some
of which are little understood by legislators, or even by the officials
of the Indian service. ‘‘ Cannot the government protect a man
from lazy Indians who eat up his crops?’’ asked an intelligent
member of a South-western tribe of a white man whose acquaint-
ance he had made. A little questioning disclosed the fact that this
Indian had planted ground and raised some corn. About the time
the crop was ready to gather, his wife’s brother arrived for a visit,
and brought his whole family, and showed no inclination to go
away as long as the corn lasted. His white friend asked him why
he did not turn them away, but he said he could not. And this
was a result of a state of society over which no individual Indian
has control, but which is appreciated by very few white men. An
Indian is just as much bound to share his provisions with his rela-
tives or the members of his clan, if they desire it, as to furnish food
for his children. This man saw the injustice of this, but knew no
way to escape it without the help of the government. There are
‘lazy Indians’ in every tribe, and the industrious ones are certain
to have as many visitors as they can accommodate, and the over-
flow will camp in the front yard. How many white farmers trying
to get a start in life, even if the land was given to them, would suc-
ceed under such circumstances? Another obstacle to the success
of the ‘land in severalty’ experiment is the natural indolence of the
Indians, —an indolence that is hereditary, and the necessary result
of the kind of life which the present generation and their ancestors
have led. “The white man gets up and goes to work before it is
light, but an Indian never wakes up until he is hungry,” said a
native of the Indian Territory twenty years ago; and the policy
that does not recognize this fact, and seek to overcome the indolent
habits rather than to destroy them by force or by placing the In-
dian in unequal competition with white men, is unscientific, and
will certainly fail. The only hope that good will come of the sev-
eralty law, therefore, is in the execution of it with discretion, and
in postponing the settlement of Indians upon lands of their own
until they are prepared for it. It may be necessary, also, to protect
industrious Indians from impositions by all of their own and their
wives’ relations.
THE SELECT COMMITTEE of the Senate of the Dominion of Can-
ada, appointed to inquire into the value of the country north of the
Saskatchewan watershed, has presented a report which is founded
on a vast amount of new and valuable information. The inquiry
shows that much of this region, which was considered a few years
232
ago part of the uninhabitable polar regions, may become settled in
course of time, as it possesses considerable natural resources. The
great length of navigable rivers facilitates communication. The
extent of continuous lake coast and river navigation is estimated at
6,500 miles, broken only in two places there situated upon the Great
Slave and Athabasca Rivers. It is stated that there is a pastoral
area of 860,000 square miles, arable lands to the extent of 274,000
square miles, while 400,000 square miles are considered useless for
cultivation. and stock-raising. The climate of this region is de-
scribed as more favorable, as is generally assumed, and comparable
in certain districts to that of western Ontario. It appears that
there is an abundance of fish, and an ample supply of wood suit-
able for building-purposes. Among the mineral products, special
attention is called to the extensive auriferous area and to the large
petroleum-fields. The energetic attempts of Canada to develop the
resources of the country have led to an increase of immigration to
their western provinces. Undoubtedly the present inquiry will
help to direct attention to the resources of those remote regions.
ECONOMY OF FOOD.
IN February we sent out from the office of Sczence a circular
letter to a number of physicians. political-economists, and others
likely to be posted and interested in the economy of food. In this
letter we called attention to Prof. W. O. Atwater’s article on the
subject in the Cen¢wry for January, and stated that it is generally
believed that even those who wish and try to economize in the pur-
chase and use of food very often do not understand how, and that
while they consult carefully the prices they pay, and judge from
these the nutritive value of the articles, they are frequently mis-
led.
Our questions sought for information as to the existence of a
considerable tendency among people of moderate means to bad
economy in the following respects: first, in the purchase of food
either of needlessly expensive kinds or ill-balanced quantities ; sec-
ond, in the cooking of food; third, in the actual waste of food, that
is, the throwing-away of nutritious material instead of consuming
it economically ; finally we asked for suggestions as to such means
as might be deemed appropriate for correcting any of these forms
of bad economy that might exist.
Responses were received from various portions of the country ;
and while the evidence was generally to the effect that there did
exist a considerable tendency among people of moderate means
to bad economy, there were several noteworthy opinions to the con-
trary.
Mr. P. H. Felker, editor of the S¢. Zouzs Grocer, stated that he
has had an experience in the retail grocery trade, and does not
think that people of moderate means exhibit bad economy, as a
rule, in the purchase of expensive kinds of food. Nor does he
believe that much is thrown away by poor people. His experience
is, that those who pay for what they buy do not waste, but that
those who do not intend to pay, but expect the world to give them
a living, are careless and wasteful. ;
Charles N. Chapin of Providence, R.I., is another of the dissent-
ers. He believes that there can be little question that there is a
tendency to purchase needlessly expensive qualities of all kinds of
food, but he is certain that there is not nearly as much extrava-
gance absolutely among such persons as there is among the rich or
even well-to-do, and he doubts very much whether there is rela-
tively as much. According to his experience, day-laborers, work-
ers in mills and factories, and the poorer class of mechanics, do
not as a rule purchase as fine a quality of meat and groceries as do
those in better circumstances. There is a large grocery in his city
whose patrons are chiefly well-to-do or rich, and this grocery has
never taken out an ‘oleo’ license ; while in the stores in the poorer
parts of the same city, and in the manufacturing villages, oleo is
sold in large quantities, sometimes almost to the exclusion of but-
ter. The dealer in choice groceries informs him that he sells five
barrels of Haxall flour to one of St. Louis, while in the mill villages
the proportion is two to one in favor of St. Louis. A butcher
having some of the best trade in Providence, and also having a
SCIENCE:
[Vou XI. No: 276
store in a neighboring manufacturing village, states that he sold
cheaper and leaner meat in the village than in the city, yet this
same man says that some of his most extravagant customers in the
city were among the poor. As at this point Mr. Chapin makes an
important suggestion, we quote his words: ‘“ And just here, it
seems to me, is the place where an error has crept into Professor
Atwater’s article, and also into the report of the Massachusetts.
Labor Bureau. In the case above mentioned the majority of the
persons who bought at the city store were rich, and those who
were not were chiefly coachmen, washerwomen, janitors, and per-
sons who were objects of charity; in other words, those who were
brought into comparatively close contact with the rich, and who
hence aped their manners and tastes. Such people are often the
most extravagant in the world. I think it will be found that it is
chiefly in neighborhoods or in stores where the rich and poor pur-
chase together that an inordinate extravagance will be found on
the part of the poor. I am positive that in our manufacturing vil-
lages and in the manufacturing sections of this city, the working-
people, while requiring good food, do not consume such a high
grade of goods as do those in better circumstances.’ In regard
to the actual waste, — non-consumption of foods purchased, — Mr.
Chapin holds that all evidence goes to show that the poor are much
more economical than the well-to-do or the rich. In Providence
the swill-contractor gets the same amount of swill from less than
six thousand persons in the wealthy part of the city as he does
from over twelve thousand persons in a manufacturing district ;
and the swill in the former case contains a large amount of nutri-
tive material, while in the latter case it consists chiefly of bones,
codfish-skins, parings from boiled potatoes, etc. Mr. Chapin be-
lieves that the use of novel or artificial articles of food, such as
canned goods, oleo, glucose, cottonseed-oil, baking-powders, etc.,
tends to make living cheaper, while these foods are in many
cases just as palatable as the more expensive. Mr. Chapin finally
suggests that it is, after all, a question whether any but a very few,
the very poor, need to practise much greater economy than they do.
While it is true that the neck is as nutritious as a sirloin steak, it
is equally true that the latter is more palatable. A man would be
comfortable in patched clothes and a room with whitewashed
walls and a bare floor, yet we do not consider it a sin or even un-
wise for the majority of even wage-earners to make their surround-
ings agreeable.
Mr. David Murray of the University of the State of New York
has serious doubts whether the prejudice which Professor Atwater
speaks of, against the purchase of cheap food, exists to any very
considerable extent.
We have also to class among the doubters of the waste of food
Mrs. M. Fay Peirce, New York, author of ‘ Co-operative House-
keeping.’
Mrs. Fay’s experience is, ‘‘ that Americans, especially men, crave
meat three times a day ; and if they can get it, they have it. No
doubt,” she says, “ they could do with meat once a day, and make
up in milk and eggs. The fact remains the same, that the human
system prefers a great deal of meat; and may not the enormous
energy and enterprise of the American people, and the large aver-
age of mental work which as a nation Americans accomplish, be
in great measure due to the national indulgence in meat? In
answer to the first question, I should therefore hesitate to say that
too much meat is purchased by our people. Second, Roast meat
and broiled meat are, of course, infinitely more enjoyable than boiled
and stewed meats. No matter how exquisitely flavored the vagowts,
the appetite will tire of them; but of beefsteak and mutton-chops
broiled, or of roast beef and roast mutton, etc., people never tire.
You cannot, however, roast or broil cheap and tough meat : hence
Americans buy the roasting and broiling pieces. If they liked a
savory stew as well, of course they would save their money and buy
it. The simple fact is, that no art of the cook can equal the flavors
of nature. Roast and broiled meat is meat az ature/, and, as long
as the poor man can pay for it, he may be expected to indulge in it.
Moreover, no doubt such meat is far more exhilarating and nourish-
ing than boiled and stewed meats. Third, I do not believe that
poor people throw away any thing they can eat. I believe that
every thing they buy is eaten except the bones and the potato and
squash parings; and, in general, the women who do their own
May 18, 1888. |
cooking probably waste little if any thing. It is with the servant-
keeping class that waste begins. Every servant throws away that
which her mistress would save were She doing her own cooking ;
and the higher up in the social scale we go, the more expensive and
varied the table, the more frightful is the waste. Of course,
nothing can stop this but the constant supervision of the house-
mistress in precisely the way that the careful German “aus-frau, and
the French middle-class woman or dourgeodse, keep a dragon
watch over their respective cooks; and it is to be doubted whether
this will ever be the case with us while American men make
money so easily, and are so generous with it as hitherto. It is, of
course, a perpetual slavery to the house-mistress —a tying-down
to three meal-times a day —when the servant must be superin-
tended and watched; for this must go on not only while she is
preparing the food, but also while she is clearing the remnants of
it away. Fourth, I have given what I consider the one and only
solution, and a perfectly comprehensive one, of all the waste of
contemporary housekeeping, as well as of its innumerable im-
perfections and shortcomings, in the theory of ‘ Co-operative House-
keeping.’ If housekeepers never combine to keep house, i.e., to
make homes in the best and cheapest manner possible, house-keep-
ing and home-making never will and never can become to every
member of the civilized human family what it can and ought to be.
Meantime perhaps the best thing that could be done for the poor
would be to insist on every girl of twelve or fourteen years of age
who leaves the grammar-schools, learning how to make a savory
stew out of cheap meat, and also how to make thick soups (what
the French call furvée) out of dried pease and beans, and also out
of potatoes, onions, celery, spinach, etc. I know that poor women
‘constantly wash and sew for a living, and bring up their children
on tea and bread chiefly. Of course these are cheaper at the
moment, and easier, than even a cheap meat-stew; for cheap tea
is certainly a very cheap way of getting motive power to work,
probably the cheapest there is. But if poor women knew how to
make a cheap stew that is really appetizing and satisfying, per-
haps they would more often do it.”
Prof. J. B. Clark of Northampton, Mass., agrees that the poor,
in common with other classes, depart from the rule of a maximum
of nutriment for a given sum ; but the departure is, in his opinion,
rather beneficial than otherwise. If any class in America above
the very lowest were to consume as much food as they now do,
and were to select the kinds that offer the largest amount of nutri-
ment for the money, they would suffer from the worst physiological
effects of over-eating. There is, however, a general habit of con-
suming too much sugar for either health or economy, and of using
unnecessarily expensive grades of flour and meat.
Prof. Edward W. Bemis of Vanderbilt University, Nashville,
Tenn., agrees with Professor Atwater as to the great wastefulness
almost everywhere prevalent in this country, but to the list of rea-
sons assigned by him, would add another as also operative in con-
siderable measure in the case of the average wage-earner. As he
writes, “it is generally believed by the latter that wages tend to
fall toward the customary cost of living, to that point which will
sustain a given class of workers in their usual comforts ; and that,
in consequence of this, any denial of one’s taste which is involved
in the use of the cheaper and more nutritious, but even, according
to Professor Atwater, less palatable foods, will only result in the
end, if generally adopted, in lower wages. To establish this de-
pendence of wages on average expenditures is the sole aim of
George Gunton’s recent book, ‘Wealth and Progress.’ At one
time the reasoning on which the above book and the general belief
of our workingmen are founded seemed conclusive to the writer,
and the presentation of the argument, as it then appeared to me,
drew out, in private conversation with a prominent writer and ad-
vocate of Professor Atwater’s views, the candid admission that
«perhaps, after all, the great benefit of this more scientific choice’
and preparation of food will consist in prevention of dyspepsia,’ — one
of the few ailments from which the poor are comparatively free.
He was right, provided the theory of wages just quoted — which,
be it noted, is quite a modification of the so-called ‘iron law ’—is
correct. This I do not believe; that is, it seems to be true only
with this important change, — that wages tend to fall to that point
which will maintain the workman in his usual comfort, and permit
SCHON Cis:
233
of his usual savings; the latter, it is true, being now small or non-
existent, and both the standard of comfort and savings being sub-
ject to fall in times of long-continued industrial depression or cut-
throat competition from the unemployed or from immigrants used
to a lower standard of living, but also (and this is most important)
being subjected to great and general increase with education and
enlargement of social wants. Money saved by the use of cheaper
and equally nutritious food may be invested in banks and co-opera-
tive building and loan associations, called in Massachusetts ‘co-
operative banks,’ and wages be still maintained at the old rates:
for the money saved will become the capital of its borrowers, and
thus increase competition for labor. This is no place for a full
discussion of the subject, though one’s theory of wages-is the per-
haps unconscious basis of nearly all discussion of economy of food
as applied to the elevation of the masses, in which aspect Professor
Atwater’s ideas attain their widest importance. If wages may be
kept as much above one’s standard of living, after allowing for the
rewards of the capitalist and employer, as the general thrift, intel-
ligence, and power of combination of the workmen may secure, and
not necessarily fall with the use of less expensive and equally nu-
tritious diet (as most wage-earners, both in and out of the unions,
believe), then the present widespread and natural objection of the
masses to the views of Professor Atwater will be fully met.” Pro-
fessor Bemis therefore urges, first, a far deeper study of the theories
of wages, and a far wider dissemination of correct views on the
subject among the masses, as a necessary preliminary to instruc-
tion upon the direct question of food-supply.
The opinion of the majority of the replies is well given by Mr. F.
E. Manson of the Kennebec Fournal, Augusta, Me., who writes,
“T have observed, even among the employees of our own establish-
ment, the tendency to bad economy, especially in early spring,
when food-articles first coming upon the market are sold at out-
rageous prices. Again: the purchases made the year through at
the provision-stores show the tendency toward luxury instead of
healthful and strength-giving food. There is no doubt in my mind
that there is a vast diminution of the real fuel-properties of food
in the way it is cooked by the very people who most need its every
strength-giving property. One has simply to sit down at a table to
evidence this. There is herea cause of the very condition (‘of
moderate means’) of our people. To make the most of food-
articles is yet a lesson to be learned. Generally among our people
an article of food once cooked is considered done. The parts not
eaten are wasted; whereas if the parts had been separated before
cooking, and cooked in different ways, or separated after cooking
and re-served in a different form, all the nutritious properties would
have been consumed, and economy practised.”
In reply to one inquiry, Gen. F. A. Walker of Boston writes,
« Among people of moderate means in the United States there un-
questionably is great waste, resulting alike from indifference and
from ignorance; but among the very poor the waste is simply
hideous. Cheated often in quantity, quality, and price at the retail
stores, the great majority of the women of the poorest class, who
are generally foreigners, are altogether incapable of managing what
they get for their scanty incomes, with true economy. They lose
in storing their supplies, in cooking them, in serving them. Even
this is not so bad as the injury done to health and to personal
habits (through the promotion of intemperance) by frying food, by
the use of saleratus, and by the bad management of fires during
the process of cooking. Much can be done by the intelligent and
benevolent to promote a better economy of the small means of the
very poor, through lectures, newspaper paragraphs, and house-
visiting. But it is with the cooking-school that the hope of a bet-
ter generation of housekeepers and domestic cooks chiefly lies.
The economy of food and materials here secured is quite as re-
markable as the superiority of results in wholesome, cleanly, ap-
petizing food. On the former point let me cite a single instance.
At the Tennyson Street School, in Boston, the amount of coal con-
sumed during the first nine weeks of the present school-year, in
keeping the range ready to cook, from half-past nine to four o’clock
each day, five days in the week, was only one-quarter of a ton.
No one can visit the school to which I have referred without being
impressed by the truly and highly educational character of the
teaching given, as well as by the immense practical value of what
234
is learned. And there is this notable difference between the ‘ book-
learning’ in the public schools and the instruction in cooking and
sewing given in them ; viz., that while the former does good to the
children only, and leaves the parents where their own schooling
(if any) left them, the domestic arts taught are at once carried
home, and become a speedy and efficient means of improving, if
not of transforming, the household. Believing, as I seriously do,
that the chief cause of that destructive appetite for strong drink,
which we once deemed native and ineradicable in the human con-
stitution, is found in unsanitary conditions, especially in badly
cooked and improperly prepared food, I look on the public cooking-
school as, in a high sense, the hope of the Republic. I believe that
a given effort and expenditure directed to this point will accom-
plish a hundred times more towards eradicating intemperance than
SCIENGE:
[Vor 2a) No. 276
EXPLORATION OF THE OBANGI-WELLE.
THE incessant endeavors of the Kongo Free State to ascertain
the supposed identity of the Obangi and Welle have at last been
successful. The last issue of the Mouvement Géographique gives
a sketch of the result of the last expedition, which was under the
command of Captain van Géle. The sketch-map below shows
the results of this exploration.
On Oct. 26, 1887, the expedition started from Equateurville on
board the steamer ‘En Avant,’ which had a large canoe from
Stanley Falls, capable of holding a hundred men, in tow. The
party consisted of Captain van Géle, Lieutenant Liénart, the cap-
tain of the steamer, a carpenter, seventeen soldiers, and twenty-
four natives. On Noy. 21 the rapids of Zongo were reached, which
stopped Grenfell’s progress on his reconnaissance in 1884, and Van
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THE UPPER KONGO AND THE BASIN OF THE OBANGI-WELLE, SHOWING THE DISCOVERIES OF CAPTAIN VAN GELE.
the same amount of effort and expenditure directed against the
drinking-habit, when once formed.”
Prof. William H. Brewer of New Haven answers in the affirma-
tive to each and all of the queries. He believes there is waste,
“partly through ignorance, partly because of prejudices against
particular kinds of food, partly because of mistaken social notions,
and divers other causes. Cooking is an art, and careless cooking
causes much waste directly, and indirectly prevents much being
made available that is now about wasted.’ As a member of the
Board of Health, Professor Brewer has looked into the matter of
kitchen garbage in several cities, and so has means of knowing that
people of moderate means do throw away a great deal of nutritious
material instead of consuming it economically. He thinks such
bad economy can only be bettered by education and the diffusion
of knowledge, especially of those kinds of sciences which are more
immediately pertinent.
Géle in 1886. Here a succession of rapids was met with, which it
took twenty days to pass. The steamer was unable to pass the
first rapids, although it was at the season of high water. The
machinery had to be taken out, and was carried over a portage.
The steamer was then drawn by a tow rope up the rapids, and was
remounted. For eighteen miles her progress was not hindered by
any obstacles, but then the rapids of Bonga were reached. These
consist of a reef, crossing the whole width of the river, and leaving
only a narrow channel near the southern bank, through which the
steamer passed without any difficulty. After a short while a new
rapid was reached. Here the Obangi narrows to a width of fifteen
hundred feet, while it attains a depth of fifty feet. These narrows
were hardly passed, when the river was found to expand to sixty-five
hundred feet in width. It is studded with rocky islands, between
which the waters rushed towards the narrows, boiling and foaming.
The steamer was unloaded, and the cargo carried over a portage.
May 18, 1888.]
Thus she was enabled to ascend the rapids. Three miles far-
ther up the river another rapid similar to the last was found, and
ascended in the same way. The next obstacle was by far the most
formidable one. Several islands situated in the river are connected
with the banks by rocks, over which the river falls. Here the
‘En Avant’ had to be unmounted and unloaded, and the hull was
hauled up the fall with great difficulty. Captain van Géle describes
this region as follows : —
“The country is beautiful. The banks of the river are bordered
by Hills of gentle slope, with woods and prairies, plantations of
bananas, and fields of maize. Most of the villages are situated on the
slopes of the hills. Seen from afar, the huts give the impression of
Swiss cottages. If there were herds of cattle grazing on the prairies,
the illusion would be complete. The country seems to be of great
fertility, the grass attaining in some places a height of twenty feet.
“The fronts of the villages situated on the banks of the river are
fortified by stockades. On high trees of cottonwood, guards are
stationed in rudely constructed huts, which have given rise to the
legend of aerial villages. I have not seen any manioc or palms in
this district, while bananas, sugar-cane, and maize abound. Up
to the third rapid the natives are of the same type as those living
farther south on the river. Their heads are shaved, and their heavy
mustaches give them a military air. Their faces are not tattooed.
We were very kindly received by this people. Above the third
rapid a new tribe was met with, —the Bakombe, who are said to
occupy a great part of the territory between the Obangi and Kongo.
They have a very remarkable fashion of dressing their hair. Some
wear enormous chignons; others, forms similar to those worn by
the Mombuttu ; still others, long and slender tresses, sometimes as
long as six feet.”
At the last rapid the waters of the river come from the north-
east. The viewis grand. The river is about twenty-eight hun-
dred feet wide, and free from obstacles. Farther east its course
was found to be westerly. No tributaries were discovered above
the rapids. On the northern bank the country is level, while in the
south a few low hills may be seen. Although not a single house is
seen from the steamer, the country is densely inhabited, numerous
villages being situated a few hundred steps distant from the banks
of the river. The latterare called ‘Dua’ by the natives. There are
numerous islands, most of which are inhabited and cultivated.
Captain van Géle states that the country is one of great fertility,
and that more provisions were offered him than his party was able
to consume. Beautiful work in iron is made by the natives, while
ivory seems to be little valued. It is worth remarking, however,
that it is used for labrets worn in the upper lips.
At Bemay a new rapid was met, which, however, was passed by
the help of the natives. A few miles above Setema, the first tribu-
tary, the Bangaso, was seen. It is a remarkable fact that neither
on the north nor on the south side are there any tributaries. The
same scarceness of tributaries is observed on the Kongo: therefore
it seems probable that the region between the Shari and the Chuapa
is throughout occupied by rivers running east and west. After the
Bangaso was passed, a new tribe was met, the Yakoma, who at-
tacked the steamer. On Jan. 1, 1888, the ‘En Avant,’ which
steamed along the north bank of the river, met a line of rocks form-
ing arapid. The steamer separated from the canoe in order to search
for apass. Immediately numerous natives attacked the canoe. At
the same time the steamer struck a rock, and it was necessary to
unload and to makea landing among the hostile natives. Lieuten-
ant Liénart, who was charged with this task, was kindly received,
but only to be attacked the more vigorously later on. In the ensu-
ing struggle two of his men were killed. Afterall, the steamer was
reloaded and repaired on an island; but the hostility of the natives,
and the fact that the water of the river was falling rapidly, made it
necessary to return at once. The expedition had reached 21° 55/
of longitude, the distance to the farthest point of Junker being some
seventy miles. It is in this unknown stretch that the Mbomo emp-
ties itself. The return was effected without casualties.
The important result of this expedition is to show that the Welle
belongs to the Kongo system ; for it would be unreasonable to doubt
its identity with the Obangi any longer. There is also some pros-
pect of having the western boundary of the Kongo basin explored
ere long. Two German expeditions are pushing eastward from
SCIENGE:
235
Kameroons, while the English missionary Brooke is ascending the
Obangi, intending to strike north-westward from Zongo.
SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON.
The Work of the United States Fish Commission on the Atlantic Coast ;
the Migrations of Fishes governed by the Temperature of the
Water; Isothermals to be constructed. —A Great Work by the
Bureau of Ethnology ; the Dictionary of North American Indian
Tribes completed, — Shall the Arid Lands be reclaimed? a Mag-
nificent Undertaking. — A New Law for the United States Fish
Commission proposed. ;
The Work of the ‘Grampus.’
ONE important fact has been established by the investigations of
the United States Fish Commission, and that is, that the move-
ments of the great masses of food-fishes that visit the bays and
rivers of this country in summer are not governed by a desire to
return to the localities where they were born, nor by the scarcity or
abundance of food, but by the temperature of the water in which it
is suitable for them to spawn. For instance: the shad never enter
one of our bays or rivers in the spring until its temperature has be-
come 60° F, Then they pass into the rivers, and up towards their
sources, always seeking the warmer waters. They move up stream
when the difference of temperature is so slight that it can only be
detected by the use of a differential thermometer ; but so sensitive
are they with their whole bodies immersed, that they easily dis-
cover the direction in which the warmer water lies.
The reason why the attempt to plant shad on the Pacific coast
failed is now known. Large quantities of little shad were planted
by the United States Fish Commission in the Sacramento River.
Very few of them returned, and all the attempts to stock the Pacific
coast waters with shad have resulted only in distributing the fish
in small numbers along the coast to Vancouver’s Island, a distance
of sixteen hundred miles. A few now enter the small rivers that
have their sources near the coast, but nowhere do they show a
disposition to come in great bodies, as on the Atlantic coast. The
explanation is, that the bay is fed by rivers rising in the mountains,
and bringing down melted-snow water, so that its temperature
during the spawning-season for shad is only 55° or 60°. Fishes
that were placed in the Sacramento River one year, therefore, never
come back. If they approach the bay, they find it too cold to pass.
California salmon, on the other hand, require a temperature of
from 40° to 45° for spawning. As they go up the rivers from the
Pacific Ocean, the water becomes colder, and they finally reach that
which is just right. But young California salmon placed in East-
ern rivers do not become acclimated; in fact, they rarely come
back. Of fifteen million young ones so planted by the United
States Fish Commission, not more than three or four have ever
been caught or seen in the rivers it was desired to stock. The
water of the rivers is warmer as they go up stream, and they
avoid it. The attempt to stock the rivers of southern Europe flow-
ing into the Mediterranean Sea with California salmon has been
successful for two reasons: they have not been able to get out of
the Mediterranean and find other spawning-places if they desired ;
and they have found streams which, being fed by melting snows in
the mountains, furnish the conditions sought.
Menhaden never enter rivers the temperature of which is below
50°. These fishes visited the coast of Maine in great numbers for
forty years, but in 1878 suddenly disappeared. The same year the
mackerel did not enter the Bay of Fundy. It is now believed that
this strange phenomenon was caused by a change in the tempera-
ture of the water.
These facts being established, it becomes very important, from
an economic point of view, to ascertain what changes take place
during the season in the temperature of the ocean off our coast
and of the bays enclosed by it, to plot isothermals, and to lay down
upon charts the migrations of these isothermals as the season ad-
vances. It is believed, that, when this is done, the migrations of
our summer food-fishes will also be discovered, and that their
movements can be accurately predicted. This work has been as-
signed to the ‘Grampus’ for the present season. Her field will
be from the capes of Virginia north. She will make careful obser-
236
vations of the temperature of the surface and bottom of the water,
and try to plot the isothermals of 50°, 55°, 60°, 65°, and70°. The
reports of a vast number of former observations made with other
ends in view, but which included temperatures, are now being ex-
amined in Washington, and the results plotted upon charts; so
that the amount of data available for constructing the isothermals
will, by the end of the season, be very large.
Another duty assigned to the party in the ‘Grampus’ is to
discover, if possible, the spawning-grounds of the bluefish and
mackerel. To this end the great masses of floating fish-eggs found
upon the ocean at certain seasons will be examined for the purpose
of determining what they are. Small hatching-apparatus have been
supplied ; and samples of the eggs will be hatched, and the young
developed sufficiently to enable the embryologists to determine what
they are. This work, if it is successful, is also expected to be of great
economic value. In order for Congress to be able to legislate in-
telligently for the protection of food-fishes, it is necessary that their
habits should be understood. If the mackerel and bluefish, for
instance, spawn out at sea, where there is no danger that they will
be disturbed by fishermen, it will be unnecessary to make laws
restricting the capture of them on the grounds where they are
usually taken. It is not probable that the capture of these fish for
food or other purposes makes any perceptible difference in their
numbers, unless they are stopped on the’ way to their spawning-
grounds.
Dictionary of North American Indian Tribes.
The Bureau of Ethnology has substantially completed the dic-
tionary of North American Indian tribes, upon the preparation of
which it has been engaged for many years ; and it is probable that
the work, comprising a volume of about five hundred pages, will
be published within a year. For practical as well as scientific uses,
this will be the most important product of the bureau since its
organization ; except, perhaps, the map showing the geographical
distribution of the linguistic families of Indians, a notice of which
was recently given in Sczence. The material is now in the form of
cards alphabetically arranged. Each card contains one title, and
of these there are between forty thousand and fifty thousand.
The plan of the work is to give alphabetically the name of each
linguistic family, tribe, and village of the North American Indians
at the time of the settlement by Europeans, with all the known
synonymes for them. The work has involved the long and patient
labor of a great number of specialists under the direction of Prof.
H. N. Henshaw, and could not possibly have been undertaken by
a private individual.
A word as to the method of preparation. The literature of the
North American Indians is very voluminous. Early and later ex-
plorers, travellers, missionaries, traders, pioneer settlers, and sol-
diers have written about them, or have referred to them in their
books. Very rarely have they been careful to be exact in the spell-
ing of the names of the tribes they have described; and, when
they have done so, typographic errors have crept in, which have
been perpetuated and often added to by other writers, until the
synonymes have been multiplied almost without end. For ex-
ample: the number of different names and different spellings of the
same name found in literature to designate the Mohawk tribe is
about two hundred. The most of these would not be recognized
by the ordinary reader, and many of them not even by the stu-
dent of Indian ethnology. In fact, even the scientific man can
hardly read five pages of an old book on the North American In-
dians without encountering the name of an Indian tribe that he
never heard of.
Many writers have misunderstood the names the Indians gave
them ; others, thinking-from the form of the name as they have
found it in some book that it must be incorrect, have guessed at
what it ought to be, and have generally corrupted it still more; still
further variations have been caused by typographic errors, as has
already been noted, until there was almost inextricable confusion.
For instance: one writer speaks of the ‘ Roundaxes’ Indians; an
earlier one, of the ‘Rondaxes;’ one still earlier, of the ‘ Oron-
dacks;’ and the true name is the ‘ Adirondacks.’ In another
case the ‘Round Head’ Indians are mentioned; a French book,
which was probably this author’s authority, calls the same tribe
SCIENCE.
[Mor 201; “SNio7276
the ‘Téte de Boule;’ he probably got the name from an English
writer who had spoken of them as ‘ Bullet Heads;’ their true
names was ‘ Bull Heads.’ In still another instance the reader en-
counters the name ‘ Pickpocket’ to designate a tribe. This came
from ‘ Pickwocket,’ which was itself a corruption of ‘Pigwolket,’
which somebody wrote for ‘Pigwacket.’ The last writer mis-
understood the true name ‘ Pagwaki.’ The following is very fun-
ny: The ‘ Kouani’ tribe are first called ‘Kuhus,’ then ‘ Ku-un,’
then ‘Kun’ (pronounced ‘Coon’), and then ‘Raccoon.’, The
‘Sundowns’ of a certain author are the ‘Samdans.’
By a careful examination of the literature of the North American
Indians, all these names have been collected and arranged, first
under the linguistic families, and then according to tribes. When
thus brought together, the origin and relations of the different
synonymes have been discovered, although previously they were
not at all apparent. |
In the dictionary the name of each linguistic family will be given
in its proper alphabetical place, followed by a short history of each,
a description of it and of the country it inhabited, and a list of the
tribes that composed it, and of the villages in which they lived.
The name of each tribe will be found in its proper place, with a
list of all the synonymes for it; each of which, in turn, will be
entered in alphabetical order with a cross-reference to the correct
name of the tribe, a statement of the linguistic family to which it
belongs, and a list of the villages it occupied. Finally, the name
of each village will be entered, followed by a brief description and
a statement of the tribe and linguistic family of its people, and the
number of its inhabitants.
The publication of this dictionary will make intelligible much in
the literature of the North American Indians that has heretofore
been vague and confused ; it will enable the reader of books refer-
ring to them to identify the tribes and villages; it will simplify the
labors of investigators in all other branches of Indian ethnological
research. For example: a great number of skulls have been
collected at the National Museum, where they are classified and
arranged for study. The collectors are many of them army
officers, Indian agents, and voluntary contributors, not special
students of ethnology, who have given ehe names of the tribes rep-
resented as they have heard or understood them. The dictionary
will enable the curators to identify these tribes, and thus make the
classification easy. Dr. Yarrow of the Army Medical Museum is
preparing a book on the mortuary customs of the Indians. Until
this dictionary is published, or he has access to it in its present
form, no thorough classification can be made. The dictionary will
also enable the government to determine the boundaries of lands
ceded by Indian tribes, and in many other ways clear up doubtful
and disputed questions.
Reclamation of Arid Lands.
Congress has been asked for an appropriation of two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars to pay for the preliminary work of dam-
ming up the cafions of the Rocky Mountains, from the Dominion
line to Mexico, and thus forming vast reservoirs of water to be
used in the irrigation of arid lands, and preventing the disastrous
floods on the lower Mississippi. The area of arid land in the
United States is about 1,300,000 square miles; and Major Powell,
director of the National Survey, estimates that at least 150,000
square miles of this might be reclaimed, — a territory exceeding in
extent one-half‘of all the land now cultivated in the United States.
The plan is to build dams across all the canons in the mountains,
large enough and strong enough to hold back the floods from heavy
rains and melting snows, and then to let the water down, as it may
be needed, upon the lands that would be reclaimed.
The preliminary work for which the appropriation is asked is to
pay for surveys to determine the sites and locations for the dams,
reservoirs, canals, and irrigation areas; the total volume of water
susceptible of storage, and the loss through evaporation and seep-
age in the reservoirs and canals; the area of land to be served by
a unit of water; the value of the redeemed land for the growth of
the crops adapted to the climate and soil; the expense of construct-
ing the dams and canals and the expense of maintaining them;
what vested rights, if any, exist.
With ample appropriations, at least two years will be required
May 18, 1888.]
for this preliminary work. Major Powell, who has probably stud-
ied the Rocky Mountain and arid region more carefully than any
one else, declares that the scheme is a perfectly feasible one, and
that the cost, though very great, will be but a small fraction of the
value of the land reclaimed. While the western portion of the
United States is not yet crowded when compared with Europe, or
even with other parts of our own country, it is no longer true that
“Uncle Sam is rich enough to give us all a farm.” But, if 150,-
000 square miles of the arid lands of the United States could be
reclaimed, the limits of our agricultural development would be
enormously extended.
Re-organization of the United States Fish Commission.
The bill prepared by Professor McDonald, and introduced in the
House of Representatives, to re-organize the United States Fish
‘Commission and to define its duties, cleclares ‘‘that it shall be the
duty of the commissioner of fish and fisheries to continue the sys-
tematic investigation of waters of the United States, and of the
biological and physical problems they present, with the object of
determining the character, abundance, geographical distribution,
and economic value of the inhabitants of the waters, both salt and
fresh, as also their migrations, and the cause influencing or regulat-
ing the same. This investigation is to be conducted on a broad
and comprehensive plan, so as to arrive at the life-history of all
species having economic value, as well as those species to which
they are intimately and essentially related.
“ That he will continue the investigation into the history of the
methods and apparatus of the fisheries and for the preservation and
utilization of fishery products now in use, and will cause careful
study to be made of new methods and apparatus introduced from
time to time with the object of determining their effect upon pro-
duction, and furnishing the information upon which to frame intel-
ligent legislation regulating the conduct of the fisheries and improy-
ing their methods and apparatus.
“That it shalfbe the duty of the commissioner of fish and fisheries
to provide for the collection of the statistics of the fisheries of the
United States, especial reference being had to the fisheries of the
Great Lakes and of the New England and North Pacific coasts of
the United States, which are of international importance, and may
influence or become the subject of treaty stipulations. The statis-
tical inquiry hereby authorized and directed shall be comprehen-
sively planned to accomplish the purposes for which it is instituted.
“That it shall be the duty of the commissioner of fish and fisheries
to continue the work of artificial propagation of food-fishes and
other useful inhabitants of the water with a view to their introduc-
tion into and establishment in the interior and coast waters, and
to the maintenance and improvement of the important commercial
fisheries of the coast and interior lakes and rivers. To this end he
will, in his annual estimates transmitted to Congress, provide for
the maintenance and operation of the existing stations of the com-
mission, and for the maintenance and operation of such additional
permanent and field stations as may be from time to time authorized
and directed.
“That the commissioner of fish and fisheries shall appoint such
employees as Congress may from time to time provide, with sala-
ries corresponding to those of similar officers in other departments
of the government, and he shall, as Congress may from time to
time provide, employ other persons, of expert knowledge, for such
time as their services may be needed, including chemists, natural-
ists, and physicists, for the conduct of the researches and investiga-
tions required in the performance of the duties devolved upon this
department, or which may be from time to time authorized and
directed by Congress.”
HEALTH MATTERS.
CONTAGION IN CouRTS. — The State analyst of New Jersey, in
a recent trial, when called upon to take an oath as witness, avoided
kissing the Bible on the ground that he might contract disease by
so doing, saying, ‘So many different persons have kissed that
book, that I do not think it safe to touch my lips to it.” The court
held that the witness must kiss the book, and he reluctantly did so.
This seems like a trifling matter, and yet it might be a serious one.
SGIENCE
237
The danger of contracting disease in this way is not imaginary.
Until courts so disinfect the Bible on which oaths are taken as to
make the act of kissing it safe, we would advise the practising of a
device which the writer has for years employed; viz., to kiss the
fingers with which he holds the book.
EDUCATING THE WHITE BLOOD-CORPUSCLES.—Dr. Ray
Lankester, in an address on ‘ The Struggle for Life’ (Zhe Hospztal
Gazette), in speaking of the function of the blood-corpuscles, said
that the corpuscles could be educated to deal with the bacteria,
and the future of preventive medicine would be the education of
the white blood-corpuscles. The fact that one man, by constant
use, could without injury take a dose of arsenic that would kill six
ordinary men, was due to the fact that he had by weakened doses
been educating and training the white corpuscles. They could be
taught to eat and flourish under conditions which, if not com-
menced gradually, would be destructive to them, and that was the
principle underlying protective inoculation. Asea preventive of
many fatal diseases in sheep and oxen, inoculation had been re-
markably successful. The corpuscles first received a weakened
breed of disease by inoculation, and thus when a violent attack
came they were ready to receive and dispose of it. This education
of the corpuscles, it seemed to him, was the explanation of the suc-
cess of vaccination. They received a weak dose of the poison from
the vaccine, and were in that way prepared for a stronger dose in
the way of small-pox. He believed the white corpuscles could be
trained to receive the most virulent poisons, and he hoped this
training would be carried on so as to deal with a great number of
diseases.
EEE Gl RIGAETS CliENGE:
Sir William Thomson’s Electrical Measuring-Instruments.
FOR some years past Sir William Thomson has been working on
electrical measuring-instruments with a view to perfecting some
means of accurately and easily measuring the heavy currents and
the potentials used in commercial work. Mr. J. A. Fleming, in
Industrtes, describes the latest forms Sir William has produced.
The ammeters are six in number. The different types are, —
The Centi-ampére balance from 1to 50 centi-ampéres
Deci-ampére fe ee oS
I 50 deci-ampéres
Ampere
‘© Deka-ampére
** Hekto-ampére
Kilo-ampére
25 amperes
ce “ DS! r00 “
“ce 0% 500
cc we & “
50 ** 2.500
All of these instruments are on the same general plan. The attrac-
tion between two coils carrying the current—one movable, the
other fixed —is balanced by a weight sliding on a scale-beam.
Heretofore the difficulty in such an arrangement has beenin getting
heavy currents to the movable coil without greatly decreasing the
sensitiveness of the apparatus. In these instruments there are two
movable coils, fastened on the two ends of a light frame, and below
each of them is a fixed coil. The frame has an axle in the middle
by which it is suspended, and it is in the suspension that the chief
novelty and improvement lie. The axle ends in two semi-cylindri-
cal trunnions. Above them are two similar fixed trunnions. The
two sets are connected by a number of extremely fine copper wires
bearing on the rounded surfaces of the lower trunnions. This ar-
rangement allows a free though limited movement of the frame,
and the numerous fine wires will carry a heavy current. The wind-
ing of the two coils are such that one end of the frame is repelled,
the other attracted, when a current passes. There is a scale-beam
attached to the frame, and a weight moving on this is shifted until
the frame is horizontal. The reading on the beam opposite the
weight gives the current that is fowing. The great advantage
of this arrangement, as in other forms of electro-dynamometer,
lies in the fact that the readings are independent of any change
in the strength of magnets, such as are used in ordinary com-
mercial measuring-instruments, and also of the value of the
earth’s magnetism. The instruments, however, are not so portable
as many other forms, and are somewhat difficult to adjust. They
will be useful for standardizing the ordinary forms of voltmeter and
ammeter.
238
ELONGATION AND CONTRACTION OF METALS IN MAGNETIC
FIELDS. — The first experiments made by Joule on the effect of
magnetization on the length of iron showed that the iron always
elongated. Mr. Bidwell has investigated the effects of very much
more intense magnetic forces than were used by Joule. At first
the iron expanded, but, after reaching a magnetic force of about 90
C.G.S. units, the iron began to contract, reaching its original length
at about 280 C.G.S. units, and contracting continuously until the
force reached 800 C.G.S. units, the limit of the experiment. Cobalt,
nickel, manganese, steel, and bismuth were also experimented on.
The two latter were practically uninfluenced in length by the appli-
cation of any magnetic force. Nickel and cobalt began to contract
from the first: nickel continued to contract to the limit of the ex-
periment; cobalt contracted until the value of the force was about
400 C.G.S. units, when it expanded again ; not, however, reaching its
original value at a force of 800 C.G.S. units.
A NEw ALTBRNATING-CURRENT ELECTRO-MOTOR. — Patents
have recently been issued to Nickola Tesla for an alternating-cur-
rent transformer and a motor which embody some novel features.
The motor is especially interesting : it is really a modification of a
plan proposed by Prof. Elihu Thomson, although the arrangement
is different. The armature consists of two coils wound at right
angles to eachother on an iron core. The coils are short-circuited
on themselves, and are not in any way connected with the external cir-
cuit of the dynamo supplying the current. The field-magnet consists
of an iron ring, the four quadrants being wound with coils, of which
the two opposite are connected. The dynamo used to supply the
currents has two sets of coils, giving alternating currents of exactly
opposite phases. These currents are taken to the motor by sepa-
rate circuits, and are connected to alternate quadrants of the field-
magnet. The action of the motor consistsin inducing, by the alter-
nating currents in the field, currents in the closed circuit armature
coils, and in alternately attracting and repelling the coils. This
motor, then, has no commutator nor brushes, and, if it works, will
be the simplest possible means of transforming energy. As to the
efficiency and output of this motor, we will have more to say later.
HEATING EFFECT OF ELECTRIC CURRENTS, — M. Cailletet has
experimented on the heating of wires by an electric current when
the pressure of the air around the wire is increased. He finds that
the heating effect is decreased as the pressure increases. A cur-
rent that would fuse a wire under ordinary pressures, will only raise
it to a dull redness when the pressure is increased. This shows
the importance of convection in incandescent lamps, and the desir-
ability of the highest attainable vacuum.
VARIATION OF CO-EFFICIENTS OF INDUCTION. — Mr. W. E,
Sumpner has experimented on the co-efficients of self-induction of
transformers under various conditions. He finds that the co-effi-
cient varies greatly with different conditions of current, etc., and
plots curves representing the values for different currents, defining
the co-efficient as the rate at which magnetism changes with the
current. The results of Mr. Sumpner’s work show, perhaps, for
the first time, the very great variation in a co-efficient that has been
taken as constant in a large number of solutions of problems bear-
ing on the subject of alternating currents. In this connection a
series of papers on induction-coils, that is now being published in
the Electrical World, is important. Heretofore the subject of al-
ternating currents has not been experimented upon in a way to
show whether the assumptions that have been made are approxi-
mately correct. These ‘ Experiments on Induction-Coils ’ show that
many of the solutions that have been given are altogether wrong.
So far, however, the most important papers of the series have not
been published : their appearance is awaited with interest.
NEw METHOD OF READING REFLECTING-INSTRUMENTS, —
The following is an abstract from a paper by M. F. Drouin, in the
Lumiere Electrigue : ‘“ The usual mirror is replaced by a thin disk
of glass. The scale being behind the instrument, the observer in
front sees the scale directly through the glass; while he sees re-
flected from the front surface of the glass the image of an object,
such as a black line on a white background, placed in front of the
instrument and to one side. When the glass disk is deflected
through an angle a, the virtual image of the mark is displaced
SCIENCE.
[Vo.. XI. No. 276
through a distance d. tan 2a (d=distance from glass to scale).
The method can be used in a well-lighted room, and does away
with all the trouble of lamps and shades.”
BOOK-REVIEWS.
Tenth Annual Report of the Connecticut State Board of Health
for the Vear ending Nov. 1, 1887, wzth the Registration Re-
port for 1886. New Haven, State.
IN addition to the usual official reports and tables of vital statis-
tics, this volume contains a report on river-pollution by Prof. S. W.
Williston, M.D., Ph.D., with reports on water-analyses by Prof.
H. E. Smith, M.D., and William G. Daggett, M.D. This report is
a very valuable and thorough one, and covers nearly one hundred
pages. It is the outcome of an act of the Legislature authorizing
the State board to investigate and ascertain, as far as practicable,
all facts in relation to the pollution of streams and natural waters
of the State by artificial causes, in order to determine the sanitary
and economic effects of such pollution. In the report are described
the chemical processes employed in the manufacture of brass, iron,
paper, woollen, cotton, and silk goods, hats, and rubber goods, and
the impurities which are cast into the streams of the State from
these manufactories. In the analyses of the water, both the biologi-
cal and chemical methods were employed.
The annual report also contains reports on an epidemic of dysen-
tery in Thomaston, by R.S. Goodwin, M.D. In this report the
author presents the following conclusions as a result of his study of
the epidemic: ‘that the outbreak of dysentery at Thomaston,
and at every other town on the Naugatuck River, occurred in
consequence of the co-operation of several favorable influences.
These were a certain season, a certain high temperature, a certain
favorable location, unsanitary modes of living, and the use of im-
pure drinking-water. Nevertheless, infection with a certain spe-
cific poison was the sole cause of this disease, and the 7d/e played
by these influences in its etiology was only to irfrease the predis-
position to the affection by rendering the human organism more
sensitive to the action of this unknown poison.”
Dr. C. W.S. Frost contributes a sanitary report of the city of
Waterbury, from which it appears that small-pox, diphtheria,
measles, and dysentery prevailed during the year.
Dr. F. E. Beckwith has contributed remarks on the recent out-
break of typhoid or enteric fever at Southampton, L.I. Just why
this report is printed in the ‘ Annual Report of the Connecticut
State Board of Health,’ does not appear, unless the explanation is
to be found in the following paragraph: “ The sanitary suggestions
which close the paper apply not only to Southampton, but to every
small seaside resort in a developing state, where there are similar
conditions of soil, surface of country, and water-supply.” The re-
marks are instructive and to the point, and are worthy a place in
the report.
Eleventh Annual Report of the Board of Health of the State of
New Fersey, and Report of the Bureau of Vital Statistics,
1887. Trenton, State.
IN this report are the following papers: ‘The Legal Aspect of
the Pollution of Streams,’ by E. S. Atwater; ‘ Air, Water, and Food,’
by Ezra M. Hunt, M.D.; ‘ Outlines of Representative Sewer Sys-
tems,’ by J. J. Croes, C.E., F. S. Odell, C.E., George P. Olcott, C.E.,
C. P. Bassett, C.E., and Charles McMillan, C.E.; ‘Exposure and
Diseases of Operatives,’ by D. Warman, M.D.; ‘ Typhoid-Fever at
Mount Holly,’ by E. M. Hunt, M.D.; abstracts from papers and
discussions of the New Jersey Sanitary Association; * Report on
the Water-Supply from the Passaic Watershed,’ by ProferAweks
Leeds, Ph.D.; and reports from the health-inspectors. The board’s
report also contains a list of persons practising medicine in the
State.
In his paper on air, water, and food, Dr. Hunt discusses the in-
fluence of impure air on the death-rate, and refers to the investiga-
tions of this subject by Messrs. Carnelly and Haldane of University
College, Dundee ; andalso those of Dr. Anderson, the health-officer
of that city. Several experiments showed that the average of car-
bonic acid and organic matter was uniformly higher in town than
in suburban or country air, and that in open places the carbonic acid
May 18, 1888.]|
during the night was less than during the day, as also the organic
matter. Micro-organisms were less at night than in the day. In
examining the air of the rooms of houses, it was found that carbonic
acid, organic matter, and micro-organisms diminished in quantity
as the cubic space per person increased from one hundred to one
thousand cubic feet. The death-rate from phthisis was highest in
three-roomed houses, which is accounted for by the fact that pul-
monary consumption is seldom in the form of tubercular disease in
young life; and in one and two roomed houses much fewer live to
the consumption age, so as to diminish the material, and so make
the actual death-rate lower. In reference to the purification of air
independent of mechanical methods, the following recommendations
are made: cleanliness of person and dwelling, and open-air spaces ;
frequent change of the air of the room ; windows should be made
to open above and below, and both sashes should be used as much
as possible ; the practice of having a lamp burning all night in bed-
rooms in small houses is greatly to be deprecated, as the heat, the
organic matter, and the carbonic acid aid in the reduction and de-
terioration of the air. Dr. Hunt discusses schoolroom ventilation,
and gives a large number of results of tests of the air in the schools
of Hoboken. In speaking of water-analysis, he refers to the biologi-
cal tests, and says that it would be premature as yet to claim any
very determinate results, although much has been found that is
valuable for comparison with chemical analyses. Dr. Hunt does
not think it to be an important function of a health board to deal
with the question of adulterated mustard or spices, nor with the
sale of oleomargarine, inasmuch as it has never been shown that
there is any serious risk to health in their use. He appreciates the
desirability of preventing commercial frauds, but does not regard
this as a function of health laws.
In the paper on sewér systems, descriptions are given of the
drainage and sewerage of the Lawrenceville School, Mercer County,
N.J., and of the systems of Long Branch, East Orange, and Morris
Plains.
The article on exposures and diseases of operatives is in the line
of valuable work which the State board has been pursuing for some
time; namely, an inquiry into the condition of workshops and fac-
tories, and as to the influence of the various trades and occupations
upon the lives and health of operatives. The chief report this year
is upon the pottery industry. Dr. Warman gives the results of his
investigation of this industry in the following recapitulation: (1)
that dust, and the liability to inhale it, is the principal cause of pot-
ters’ asthma and potters’ consumption; that the greatest number
of sufferers from the above-named diseases occurs among ‘china
scourers ;’ (2) the greatest sufferers from lead-poisoning are dippers,
and those assisting them, — glost-placers, mixers of colors, ground-
layers, majolica and other painters, and those who ‘fettle’ ware
after it is dipped; (3) that the pottery workmen most liable to
rheumatic affections are ovenmen and kilnmen, who are greatly ex-
posed to heat and strong draughts; they also suffer much from
colds contracted from the sudden checking of the perspiration,
which often terminates in acute inflammations of the chest ; (4) that
those engaged in sedentary occupations suffer most from disorders
of the digestive organs, liver, and stomach, followed by general de-
bility, defective blood-making, and hence bloodlessness, sensitive-
ness to cold, constipation, and a tendency to internal congestions ;
(5) the auxiliary causes are neglect of cleanliness, in work, in shops,
in dress and in personal habits, inattention to ventilation and to
the heat and moisture of the workshop, intemperance, and irreg-
ular living ; that a large majority of workers do not remain contin-
uously at the work for more than from fifteen to twenty years ; finally,
that the removal of the exciting cause or causes is the only rational
means of preventing or interrupting the diseases of potters. Statis~
tics show that pottery operatives in this country are in better health
than those in the Old World.
Evolution and zts Relation to Religious Thought.
LECONTE. New York, Appleton. $1.50.
IT is always with a deep sentiment of respect that we take up a
book in which an earnest thinker expresses his views which embody
a life’s work, — the work of the author’s mind in settling the puz-
zling questions that offer themselves at one time or another to every
man; and the work of the subjects that have occupied him for
By JOSEPH
128
SCEINGE:
259)
years and years upon the evolution of his mind. For it cannot be
but that the latter influence makes certain points of view more im-
portant to one man’s mind than to that of another, and accordingly
their final conclusions will differ either fundamentally, or at least to-
a certain extent. It is therefore not with the expectation that we
will find zZe truth in a book setting forth the opinions of a man —
for we doubt whether such truth exists — that we read a book of this.
kind, but it is the zsthetical and ethical pleasure we look for in
listening to opinions that are true to one principle, and therefore
consistent. It is with this feeling that we read Professor LeConte’s.
book with the greatest interest and gratification.
His explanation of evolution in the introductory chapter opens a
clear view to his thoughts: ‘‘ Every system of correlated parts may
be studied from two points of view, which give rise to two depart-
ments of science. The one concerns changes within the system by
action and re-action between the parts, producing equilibrium and
stability ; the other concerns the progressive movement of the sys-
tem, as a whole, to higher and higher conditions. . The one
concerns things as they are, the other the process by which they
become so.” This idea has been expressed by other writers by the
words, ‘evolution is part of the science of history as opposed to
the science of physics.’ The author then proceeds to define evolu-
tion, which he calls ‘‘a progressive change according to certain
laws by means of resident forces.” It is not the object of this re-
view to follow the author in his argument for proving the truth of
evolution in the sense as here described. Neither is this argument
‘the principal object of the book, which is an explanation of the re-
lation of evolution to religious thought. The author emphasizes.
justly that by accepting the law of evolution we do not become
materialists any more than by accepting the law of gravitation. In
setting forth his views as to the relation of man to nature, he as—
sumes physical and psychical phenomena as equally true, but their
connection as only intelligible to an intelligence superior to that of
man. He believes that in man physical changes may be produced
by psychical changes, while in animals only the reverse is the case.
His views on the relation of God to man are an attempt to recon-
cile the theological and positivistic views —as we should say, in-
stead of LeConte’s materialistic — from the standpoint that both
contain some truth, and that God is immanent in nature. These
conclusions are as much dictated by feeling as by reasoning, and
therefore they will be convincing and satisfactory to some men,
while they cannot claim to be as firmly founded as the results of
scientific investigations.
Accidents and Emergencies. By CHARLES W. DULLES, M.D.
3d ed. Philadelphia, Blakiston. 16°. 75 cents.
IN the preface to this edition the author says that whoever has.
seen how invaluable, in the presence of accident, is the man or
woman with a cool head, a steady hand, and some knowledge of
what is best to be done, will not fail to appreciate the desirability
of possessing these qualifications. To have them in an emergency,
one must acquire them before it arises, and it is with the hope of
aiding any who wish to prepare themselves for such demands upon
their own resources that the suggestions contained in the book
have been put together. They cannot take the place of calling a
physician or surgeon, but may fill up with helpful action what
might otherwise be a period of inaction and despair before skilled
assistance arrives.
Among the many topics treated are drowning, suffocation, chok-
ing, foreign bodies in the eye, nose, and ear, fits, sunstroke, sprains,
dislocations, fractures, wounds, hemorrhage, poisons, etc. The
book also contains a list of the supplies which are necessary to
meet such emergencies as are liable to arise in every family, and
gives the doses and uses of the medicines commonly found in the
family medicine-chest. The illustrations are good and sufficiently
numerous. In order to make this little treatise available for sudden
necessity, pains have been taken to make the index as complete as
possible, and the typography has been so arranged that leading
words may catch the eye on every page. The language is simple,
being entirely devoid of technicalities, and the methods of treatment
recommended are trustworthy and reliable. The manual is one of
the best of this class of books, and should be in the library of every
householder, ready for reference at a moment’s notice.
240
Practical Education.
taker.
By CHARLES G. LELAND. London, Whit-
Tf
THIs is an essentially vicious book. In these days, when all en-
lightened educators are calling for meat, it is an outrage to offer
them such a stone as this. It is the more vicious because it is
offered in the guise of a contribution to the literature of the new
education. Some things in it are good, many are nonsensical, and
all are superficial. There is no grasp of education shown in it, no
psychological power, and no connected account of any successful
practical experience. The number of times that the words ‘I,’ ‘my,’
‘mine,’ ‘me,’ etc., occur is sufficiently numerous — or sufficiently
innumerable — to characterize the work. It contains no reference,
at least no intelligent reference, to the manual-training movement
which is revolutionizing the American schools and the traditional
‘course of study. It offers no suggestions as to the co-ordination in
various grades of schools of ‘industrial-art education ’ and the ordi-
nary studies.
We fear that the title of this book may commend it to the atten-
tion of many who are conscientiously studying contemporary edu-
‘cational thought. We warn such readers that Mr. Leland’s book
‘is superficial, that it is crude, that it is representative of no impor-
tant educational movement. Some of the points on which the
author touches are in themselves commendable, and have been
taken up by other writers. When this has happened, they have
usually been based on some educational principle. With the author
of this book they seem to be mere ‘ flashes in the pan.’ He has not
discovered that an ‘art-writer’ and an ‘educator’ are not neces-
sarily convertible terms.
NOTES AND NEWS.
THE first number of the journal of the American Folk-Lore
Society, which was recently organized, has just been issued under
the title Zhe Fournal of American Folk-Lore. It shows how
much work may be accomplished by a society of this character, and
that the establishment of a centre for collecting the fast-vanishing
remains of American lore was a necessity. The journal is devoted
to the study of the relics of Old English lore, as well as to that of
the Indians, negroes, and other immigrants, and the first number
‘contains articles on each of these subjects. Prof. T. F. Crane con-
tributes a paper on the theory of the diffusion of popular tales,
while H. Carrington Bolton gives an interesting collection of the
-counting-out rhymes of children. The general editor, Mr. W. W.
Newell, studies the alleged Vaudoux (Voodoo) worship and child-
sacrifice in Hayti, and arrives at the conclusion that it is the old
superstition regarding the Waldenses that has been transplanted to
America. The Vaudoux of Hayti are the Waldenses of France, the
‘word having been introduced in the seventeenth century ; and the al-
leged practices of the latter are now ascribed tothe Vaudoux. The
second half of the volume is devoted to Indian lore. Dr. D. G. Brin-
ton gives some remarks on the Lenapé, Rev. W. M. Beauchamp re-
lates tales of the Onondaga, while Rev. J. Owen Dorsey and Dr. F.
Boas have articles on myths and customs of Dakota and British
‘Columbian tribes. Much interesting and valuable information has
been collected in the ‘Folk-Lore Scrap-Book,’ and students will
find the bibliographical notes very useful. The first number of the
journal augurs well for the development and usefulness of the
society.
— Records of about 3,500 orders received by A. A. Marks, New
‘York, for an artificial arm or leg are found sufficiently full to enable
them to be tabulated for statistical purposes. Ofall the artificial limbs
made by the firm, 85 per cent are legs, and 15 percent arms. This
small percentage for arms may be explained by the fact that fewer
persons who have lost their arms supply themselves with artificials
than those who have lost their lower extremities, inasmuch as it is
easier for a man to go through this world with one arm than with
one leg ; and, besides, an artificial arm for amputation above the
elbow is of so little service, aside from appearance, that few persons
with amputations above the elbow ever use them. Taking these
facts into consideration, the percentages referring to arms cannot
be regarded of very much value in estimating the comparative res-
torations of the upper and lower extremities. Of all the legs taken
into consideration, 49 per cent are right, 46 per cent are left, and 5
SCIEN CE:
[Vor “Nov276
per cent both. The above figures show that the proportion of right
legs amputated to left is nearly even, with the small difference of
three per cent in favor of the right. Seventy-eight per cent of legs
amputated are of males, and twenty-two per cent of females. The
proportion for double amputations of males is nearly double that
of females. This may be explained by the fact that males are more
frequently placed in jeopardy than females. Over one-half of all
the amputations are between the knee and ankle, witha larger per-
centage for males. Of all the arms manufactured by the firm,
ninety-two per cent are for males, and eight per cent for females.
—A. H. Worthen, State geologist of Illinois, is dead.
—Mrs. Emma W. Hayden has given to the Academy of Natural
Sciences of Philadelphia, in trust, the sum of twenty-five hundred
dollars, to be known as the Hayden Memorial Geological Fund, in
commemoration of her husband, the late Prof. Ferdinand V. Hay-
den, LL.D. According to the terms of the trust, a bronze medal,
and the balance of the interest arising from the fund, are to be
awarded annually for the best publication, exploration, discovery, or
research in the sciences of geology and paleontology, or in such
particular branches thereof as may be designated. The award, and
all matters connected therewith, are to be determined by a com-
mittee to be selected in an appropriate manner by the academy.
The recognition is not to be confined to American naturalists.
— Two living buffaloes, the gift of Fish Commissioner Blackford
of this city have been added to the small collection of animals
gathered in the Smithsonian grounds in Washington during the past
few months. A bill has already been introduced into Congress for
the purchase of a large tract of the beautiful suburban lands lying
along Rock Creek, just outside of the city limits of Washington,
and the establishment upon it of a government zoological garden.
The bill may not be passed this year, but the few living animals
now in possession of the National Museum are no doubt the nucleus
of what will in a few years be a very important national zoological
collection. Professor Hornaday has been made curator of living
animals.
— An exhibition of the first year’s industrial work in the Wash-
ington public schools will be given at the close of the present month,
Professor Powell, the superintendent, does not expect to make as
brilliant a display as that recently made in Philadelphia, and in
other cities where manual training was introduced earlier; but he
will show astonishing results, when it is considered that only five
thousand dollars has been spent in fitting up shops and cooking-
schools, and a year’s expenses, including materials used, and that
the pupils whose work will be exhibited have had instruction only
one hour a week for a year.
—A geographical society has been formed in Peru for the pur-
pose of collecting and publishing information regarding Peru. The
society, which will be known by the name ‘ Geographical Society of
Lima,’ counts a number of eminent explorers and scientists of
South America among its founding members.
— The Government of Ontario is about to take more energetic
measures for the development of its mines, and as a preliminary
step has appointed a royal commission to inquire into and report
upon the subject. Members of the commission are Dr. R. Bell of
the Canadian Geological Survey ; W. H. Merritt, mining engineer ;
W. Coe, proprietor of the Madoc iron-mines; and A. Blue, deputy
minister of agriculture ; while John Charlton is chairman.
IBARIMAINS) IANO) Ahlald, IIOIALOI
*." Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer's name ts
in 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.
Is the Rainfall increasing on the Plains ?
Mr. CurTIS does a service in-calling attention to the serious
error in the rainfall record of Fort Leavenworth for January, 1871
and 1872. It is to be hoped that any errors of this kind will be
similarly pointed out.
May 18, 1888. ]
_ The data on secular variation in rainfall, p. 19, Wonthly Weather
Review for April, 1887, show, however, that, even with these errors
corrected, the rainfall at Leavenworth for the past twenty-five years
has been considerably greater than for the previous twenty-five
years. There is no doubt that material errors existed in the old
records, some of which are due to neglect or falsification of
records, while others, as in this case, are due to gross carelessness.
Rainfall data are now being collated by the Signal Office with a
view to their examination and discussion; but the more the records
are examined, the more possible it seems that observations prior to
1870 should be neglected, except in cases of well-known and reli-
able observers. A. W. GREELY.
Washington, D.C., May 12.
Disparate Vision.
Mr. Hystopr’s experiments in physiological optics as detailed in
Sczence, Nos. 261, 262, and 274, are interesting in that they show
the importance of monocular perceptions in attaining what we may
think to be binocular effects, even though they may not fully dis-
prove the generally accepted theory of corresponding retinal points.
Having devoted much time to this subject (see Amerzcan Journal
of Science for November and December, 1881, March, April, May,
October, and November, 1882), I may perhaps claim some practice
in experiments of this’ kind. The result of former investigations
was my total abandonment of the geometric considerations which
formed an integral part of Brewster’s theory of binocular vision, and
which have been repeated time and again since his day. The
empiristic theory, as developed by Helmholtz, seems more consis-
tent with the more general theory of evolution now universally
accepted as fundamental in biology. According to this, we rap-
idly learn in infancy to interpret our binocular perceptions by
experience that is too complex for analysis. Assuming a certain
inherited structure for the retina, which is alike for the majority
of individuals of the race, it remains possible to modify our per-
ceptions slightly by training; and it would not be safe to deny
that in exceptional cases binocular perceptions may result from
simultaneous impressions on retinal points that are decidedly dis-
parate. I have elsewhere adduced arguments to show that no
strictly mathematical interpretation can be put upon the theory of
corresponding points (Amerzcan Journal of Sczence, May, 1882,
p- 355 e¢ seg.). The perception of the third dimension in space
without any of the aids resulting from shading, comparison, or mo-
tion, has lately been shown to be quite possible with monocular
vision alone (Amerzcan Journal of Psychology, November, 1887,
p- 99, article on the Horopter, by Mrs. Franklin). I had no difficulty
in attaining this monocular perception in repeating Mrs. Franklin’s
experiments.
But although constrained to assign much greater potency to
monocular vision than was customary after the stereoscope became
generally known and used, and although our interpretation of bi-
nocular perception has to be much more elastic than it formerly
was, there seems to be not yet sufficient ground for the belief that
any large part of our binocular perceptions are the result of impres-
sion on pairs of retinal points that are widely disparate. The same
perception may be changed by force of will or of imagination, and
with various degrees of success by the same person at different times.
Without denying the validity of Mr. Hyslop’s perceptions, I do not
succeed in getting exactly his results. Combining the two circles by
either convergent or divergent vision, the binocular effect is an ellipse
whose plane is perpendicular to the meridian plane only when their
inclinations to this plane are equal. This perception is rigidly bi-
nocular. Let, now, their inclinations be different. For example: let
the plane of the circle 4 make an angle of 30° with the meridian plane,
and Ban angle of 60°, the two being seen by cross-vision. In the accom-
panying diagram the cards are supposed to be seen edgewise, the two
eyes being at and Z. The plane of the resultant ellipse changes
about to the position C, the horizontal axis, which was previously
the shorter one, becoming now much longer than the vertical axis,
which has remained unchanged. The projection of the circle A on
the retina Z is quite a narrow ellipse, while that of 2 on the retina
f is almost if not quite circular, the vertical diameters of these
ellipses being nearly equal. At the top and bottom of the resultant
ellipse the perception may be due to impression on corresponding
SCIENCE:
24t
retinal points, while for other parts the impression is on disparate:
points. Very little attention is required to perceive the separate
monocular images. By still further diminishing the angle @ and
increasing #, a limit is reached at which binocular fusion ceases to
be possible. Two ellipses are seen, apparently crossing each other
in space about where C was ; the plane of one being nearly parallel
to A, and that of the other nearly parallel to 2. By indirect mo-
nocular vision, 4 is still seen by the right eye, and ZB by the left.
The locality of the crossed ellipses is not so definite as was that of
the binocular ellipse; but the illusion of suspension in space still
remains, and with it is the monocular perception of the third dimen-
sion in space. Even when a is very nearly equal to £, it is pos-
sible by rivalry of retinal impressions to gain or losé monocular
perceptions alternately with binocular resultants. But the clear-
ness of the binocular illusions is more pronounced than that of the
monocular in proportion as the separation of the disparate points
impressed becomes less. It is fair to conclude that binocular vision
is at its best when there is perfect correspondence of at least a
goodly proportion of the retinal points impressed, and but slight sep-
aration of disparate points. Butitis quite necessary, in the majority
of cases, that there shall be some such disparateness. The mental
effect produced is instantaneous. Since double images, whether
homonymous or heteronymous, are rarely ever perceived except as
L R
the result of special ocular training, and since the binocular percep-
tion of depth in space may result where one element may, on geo-
metric grounds, be considered to be combined with other elements
so as to produce at the same instant both homonymous and _ hete-
ronymous double images (American Journal of Sctence, October,
1882, p. 5), binocular vision is far from being so simple and easy of
explanation as it seemed to the students of forty years ago:
W. LECONTE STEVENS.
Brooklyn, N.Y., May s. °
Agriculture and Late Quaternary Geology.
IN view of the effort now being made to endow the United States
Geological Survey with the means of carrying into effect the “ classi-
fication of lands” called for in the act creating it, it may be of
interest to record one out of many instances where this classifica—
tion, in connection with agricultural phenomena, affords informa-
tion equally interesting to the geologist and the farmer.
At a late visit to the upper San Joaquin valley for the purpose of
locating on a representative soil a culture experiment station under
the Hatch Act, the writer was under the necessity of obtaining a
cross-section of the great valley in the latitude of Tulare City, from
Lake Tulare on the west, to the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada on
the east.
The dark-tinted loam-deposits at present forming on the edge of
that lake being already familiar, it was easy to recognize in the
‘black-lands’ belt, that begins about two miles westward of the
242
‘Southern Pacific Railroad (here running midway between the Sierra
and the lake), the earliest border of that basin, distant quite four-
teen miles from the lake-shore as recorded on the maps, but which
itself is now several miles inland from the water's edge. The rail-
road and Tulare City lie on a belt of sandy land, obviously some-
what higher in level than the ‘black lands,’ and here about eight
miles wide. In crossing this belt to the eastward we traverse sev-
eral bands of ‘alkali land,’ characterized by the dense growth of
Brézopyrum, or ‘alkali-grass,’ and evidently forming a summit
plateau on the divide between the Tuiare basin proper and the ex-
treme southern branch of the delta bayous’ of the Kaweah River,
called ‘ Outside Creek,’ or Elk Bayou. Approaching this water-
‘course, we again come to a ‘black-lands’ belt, about three miles
wide, which borders the bayou on both sides, and evidently rep-
resents an estuary of the time when Tulare Lake was much higher
than now, and the Kaweah delta bayous were mere swamps. An-
other ‘alkali-land’ belt is crossed after traversing the ‘black-
lands’ of Outside Creek, towards the foot-hills: beyond these, lies
a narrow sandy belt corresponding to that along the railroad, as
above described. Then, at a distance of some eight miles from the
foot-hills, the color of the soil begins to change toward the well-
known red tint of the soils resulting from the decomposition of the
“bedrock’ slates of the foot-hills; but the ascent is so gradual that
to the eye the piain appears as level as ever, although the presence
-of the ferric hydrate in the soil proves that these ‘ red lands’ were
never submerged for any great length of time, since otherwise their
iron would have been reduced and leached out, or gathered into
“black gravel’ (bog-ore), as is the case in the ‘ black lands’ of the
lake and bayou borders. On inquiry, it was learned that all the
larger streams of the region (including Tule River and Deer Creek,
outside of the Kaweah delta) are accompanied by belts of such
‘black land.’
Besides these main bayous, there appear in the sandy lands a
few obvious sandy channels, usually dry, but carrying water in time
-of flood.
But a curious and at present very striking demonstration of the
-ancient drainage system of the region may be seen in the grain-
fields. In consequence of the failure of the usual April rains, most
of the wheat-fields of the region are now in a very precarious con-
dition where not irrigated, and much of the wheat sown will not
even make hay. Its condition is best on the ‘ black lands,’ and in
certain portions of the sandy belt that do not show any obvious
difference in soil from adjoining tracts in which the crop is already
dried up without having been able to form grain in the ears. The
eye quickly recognizes the extraordinary resemblance of the out-
lines of the dead portions to meandering water-channels, but no
difference of surface-level remains to indicate the fact. But, by
‘digging in any part of these meandering belts of desolation, we find
the sandy soil becoming sandier as we descend, until finally, at
-about three feet depth, an almost pure, coarse sand underlies, which
obviously cannot raise moisture within reach of the root system. On
the adjacent land, where the wheat is still green and growing, we
find at the same depth a subsoil of increased closeness and capil-
lary power, which keeps the moisture below within reach of the
roots.
Thus a bird’s-eye-view photograph taken of this region now,
would show, traced out in minute detail by the color-contrast be-
tween the living and the dead grain, the ancient drainage of the
country, of which its surface at present shows no indication, to-
gether with the broad bands of the ancient estuaries that have formed
the ‘black lands,’ characterized by green, growing grain or an ex-
traordinarily luxuriant growth of oaks, that likewise outlines the
ancient margin of Lake Tulare.
We thus obtain a chapter of the geological history of the valley
from a mere reconnaissance such as any one desiring to invest in
its lands would need to make. The significance of the ‘alkali
lands’ in both points of view remains for a future discussion.
Itis hardly necessary to dwell upon the interest attaching to the
study of these features, whether from a practical or a purely scien-
1 Tt should be understood that the Kaweah River, emerging from a caiion of the
Sierra next to southward of King’s River, divides into a number of forks or
bayous immediately upon entering the valley plain. The extensive delta region thus
formed is one of the richest, as well as the only forest-grown area of the great valley
of California.
SCIENCE:
[Morr INo.t276
tific standpoint. One point, however, should be specially noted ;
namely, that a great many of the characteristic marks of these late
quaternary events are rapidly disappearing before the advance of
cultivation, and the replacement of the native plant-growth (the re-
sult of secular co-adaptation of soils and plants) and of the natural
surface by the well-known results of agricultural operations. The
latter are already obliterating, on large tracts, the singular ‘ hog-
wallow’ mounds that form so striking a feature and so difficult a
problem, the solution of which must largely depend upon the geo-
graphical distribution of these swarms of mammillary elevations.
It is hard to see on what ground the study of these latest phe-
nomena, connecting the present with the immediate geological past,
should be deferred until it is too late to complete the record, by giving
precedence altogether to the ancient formations. The rocks and
fossils of the older formations will remain undisturbed for ages, as in
the past, awaiting the leisure of the student of geology; while the
delicate tracings of the latest pre-modern epochs are liable to fade
away rapidly before the advancing settlement of the country. Nor
can it be maintained that the processes that gave them birth, and
which are still active in the formation of soils, are not scientifically, as
well as practically, at least of equal interest with those that formed the
older rocks, It is true that their study does not offer the easy re-
wards of the naming of new fossils, minerals, and rocks, which in
times not yet belonging to the far past seemed to be the chief aim
of students of geology; but they are none the less worthy of the
highest scientific effort, and their practical results bear on products
of an importance at least as great as those of the richest mines.
E. W. HILGARD.
Berkeley, Cal., May 1.
Queries.
32. HUMAN BEINGS AS PACK-ANIMALS.—JIn studying the
history of transportation, I have ascertained that the first pack-
animals were human beings, —men and women. Long before any
of the animals were domesticated as beasts of burden, there were
common carriers moving vast quantities of merchandise about the
world. They toted (carried on the head) ; they hung great loads
to their foreheads by means of a strap connected with a pack,
wallet, basket, or frame on the back; they ‘shouldered’ their bur-
dens, with or without yokes, front and rear, on one shoulder (like
the Chinese) or on both shoulders (like the Dutch) ; they strapped
their primitive knapsacks to their shoulders; they harnessed them-
selves to a load, as they did afterwards dogs, reindeer, horses, etc.
Now, I should also like to know how much a man can tote, how much
a woman can tote, and how long a time, without resting, the toting
may go on. I should also like to know how much a man ora woman
can carry in any particular manner, and how long a time the opera-
tion can be kept up without resting. The weight multiplied by the
time will give a rough unit of human endurance. I shall be ex-
tremely obliged to any one who will give me valuable information
on this subject. O. T. MASON.
Washington, D.C., May ro.
Answers.
22. WASP-STINGS. —It is a fact not generally known, that, if
one holds his breath, wasps, bees, and hornets can be handled with
impunity. The skin becomes sting-proof, and holding the insect
by the feet, and giving her full liberty of action, you can see her
drive her weapon against the impenetrable surface with a force that
lifts her body with every stroke; but, let the smallest quantity of
air escape from the lungs, and the sting will penetrate at once. I
have never seen an exception to this in twenty-five years’ observa-
tion. I have taught young ladies with very delicate hands to aston-
ish their friends by the performance of this feat; and I saw one so
severely stung as to require the services of a physician, through
laughing at a witty remark of her sister, forgetting that laughing
required breath. For a theory in explanation, I am led to believe
that holding the breath partially closes the pores of the skin. My
experiments in that direction have not been exact enough to be of
any scientific value, but I am satisfied that it very sensibly affects
the amount of insensible perspiration. W. L. WILDER.
Somerville, Mass., May 7.
May 18, 1888. |
“ SCIENCE:
BOOK-NOTES.
—D. C. Heath & Co. will publish, May
5. ‘Exercises in English, a Drill-Book on
Accidence, Syntax, and Style,’ by H. I.
Strang.
—‘Noble Deeds of our Fathers as told by
Soldiers of the Revolution, gathered around
the Old Bell of Independence,’ is the name
of an interesting book, revised and adapted
for supplementary reading in schools, and
for school libraries everywhere, soon to be
published by Lee & Shepard, Boston.
— The Novelist (published weekly, at one
dollar a year, by J. B. Alden, New York)
undertakes to give the worthiest fiction that
American authors can be tempted to pro-
duce. The stories will follow successively,
one at a time, a novel of ordinary length thus
being completed in from four to eight weeks.
— John Wiley & Sons, New York, an-
nounce as in preparation ‘ Rocks and Soils,’
a treatise on the chemistry of geologic trans-
formations and soil composition, by H. E.
Stockbridge; ‘An Elementary Course of
Descriptive Geometry,’ by Solomon Woolf;
«Microscopical Physiography of Minerals and
Rocks,’ Vol. I., by H. Rosenbusch, trans-
lated by Joseph P. Iddings; ‘ Differential
Equations,’ by Prof. W. W. Johnson; ‘A
Grammar of the Hebrew Language,’ by W.
H. Green; and ‘A Treatise on Hydraulics,’
by Prof. Mansfield Merriman.
-Calendar of Societies.
Philosophical Society, Washington.
May 12.—W. A. Croffut,
Hypnotism.
Experiments in
Biological Society,
May 5.—R. E. C. Stearns, Instances of
Mutations in Specific Distribuiion among Shells ;
€. L. Hopkins, Notes upon Pollenation of the
‘Nave’ Oranges; C. Hart Merriam, Descrip-
tion of a New Meadow Mouse, with Remarks
on the Subgenus Ped/omys ; Lester F. Ward. On
Some Char ccteristics of the Flora of the Pot»-
mac Formation.
Torrey Botanical Club, New York.
May 8. —H.H. Rusby, Andean Fern Habi-
tats; R G. Eccles, Preservation of the Color of
Flowers by Chemical Preparations ; N. L. Brit-
ton, Notes on Nelumbium.
Washington.
American Institute of Electrical Engineers,
New York.
May 15.— Nikola Tesla, On a New System
of Alternate Current Motors and Transform-rs ;
Francis B. Crocker, The Possibilities and Lim-
itations of Chemical Generators of Electrici y ;
G. W. Plympton, Underground Electrical Sys
tems in Eur speand America ; Edward L. Nich-
ols, On Compensated Resistance Standards,
and On Professor Moler’s ‘Swinging Arm’
Galvanometer; George H. Stockbridge, The
Patent Court and Uniformity in Patent Prac-
tice; P. B. Delany, Protection of the Human
Body from Dangerous Currents.
Connecticut Acatemy of Arts and Sciences,
New Haven.
May 16.—H. A. Newton,
lites.
Orbits of Aero-
Boston Society of Natural History.
May 16. -— Alpheus Hyatt, The Evolution of
Faunas in the Lower Lias ; W. O. Crosby, The
Geology of Nantasket.
¢
Publications received at Editor’s Office, April
23-May 12.
Acassiz, A. Three Cruises of the United States Coast
and Geodetic Survey Steamer ‘“ Blake.’’ Vols. I.
and II. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin,
& Co. 3144220 p. 8°. $8.
Ecieston, T. Some Thoughts and Suggestions on
Yechnical Education. New York, The Author.
» GPs
Foik-Lore, Journal of American. Vol. I. No.1. April-
June. Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin, &
Co. 96p. 8°. $3 per year; single numbers, $1.
Fritscu, K. v Allgemeine Geologie. Stuttgart, Engel-
horn. soop. 12°. $3.50.
Gray, A. Synoptical Flora of North America. The
Gamopetala. (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collec-
tions, No. 591.) Washington, Smithson. Inst. 973 p.
8°.
GreeLey Exponent, The. Vol. I. No. 1. April, 1888.
m. Greeley, Col., D. W. Elliott. 8 p. f°. 50
cents.
Hatter, L. Alles in Allen. Metalogik, Metaphysik,
Metapsychik. Berlin, Duncker. 480 p. 8°.
Hepites, S. C. Analele Institutului Meteorologic al
Romaniei pe anul 1886. Bucuresci, F. Gobl Fii.
22h peptic
Hiri, G. A. Lessonsin Geometry. Boston, Ginn & Co.
182p. 12°
Marcerir, E. de, and Herm. A Les Dislocations de
V’écorce Terrestre. Ziirich, J. Wurster &Co. 154 p.
8°.
PennsyLvania Geological Survey, Annual Report of the,
for 1886. In four parts. With atlas. Harrisburg,
Geol. Surv. 1329p. 12°.
Timsot, R. A Pessimist; in Theory and Practice.
New York, J.B Alden. 204 p. 12°. 30 cents.
Unverwoop. L. M. Our Native Ferns and their Allies.
3d ed. New York, Holt. 156p. 12°.
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SPECIAL SALE
OF
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Who shall succeed Superintendent of eaneaits Jasper in. New dine aby phordeBacH lus : : ; ; 35289
York ?— News from Central Africa. — The Rene of | Phe Numberlof ‘Medical Students, - : : Bae)
Commander Bartlett. | Mental Science
Mythology and American Myths . 244 | Reflex Speech 249
: = 9 A | Re-action Time for Tem erature and Tactile Sensations 250
Scientific News in Washington. | An Instructive Case of WordeDeatness 250
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VoL. XI. No. 278.
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Map of the Vellowstone Park.
Editorial i 4 x . ‘ , BER Possibilities and Limitations of Chemical Generators of Elec-
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The Science Company, Publishers,
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[ VoL. xt. ‘No: 278
ALL TRAVELLERS WANT THEM!
Tickuor’s Payer Series,
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No.1. The Story of Margaret Kent. By Henry Hayes.
- Guenn. By Blanche W. Howard.
The Cruise of a Woman Hater. By G. De Mon-
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. A Reverend Idol.
- A Nameless Nobleman. By Jane G. Austin.
- The Prelate. By Isaac Henderson,
. Eleanor Maitland. By Clara Erskine Clement.
. The House of the Musician. By Virginia W.
Johnson.
. Geraldine.
. The Duchess Emilia.
tr. Dr. Breen’s Practice. By W. D. Howells.
12. Tales of Three Cities. By Henry James.
13. The House at High Bridge. By Edgar Fawcett.
14. The Story of a Country Town. By E. W. Howe.
15. Confessions of a Frivolous Girl. By Robert Grant.
- Culture’s Garland. By Eugene Field.
17. Patty’s Perversities. By Arlo Bates.
18. A Modern Instance. By W. D. Howells.
19. Miss Ludington’s Sister. By Edward Bellamy.
. Aunt Serena. By Blanche W. Howard.
- Damen’s Ghost. By Edwin Lassetter Bynner.
. A Woman’s Reason. By W. D. Howells.
. Nights with Uncle Remus. By Joel Chandler
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- A Tallahassee Girl. By Maurice Thompson.
. Beatrix Randolph. By Julian Hawthorne.
. A Fearful Responsibility, By W.D. Howells.
- Homoselle. By Mary F. Tiernan.
. A Moonlight Boy. By E. W. Howe.
. The Adventures of a Widow. By Edgar Fawcett.
- Indian Summer. By W. D. Howells.
. The Led-Horse Claim, By Mary Hallock Foote.
. Len Gansett. By Opie P. Read.
. Next Door. By Clara Lousie Burnham.
35. The Minister’s Charge. By W. D. Howells.
The June volumes of TICK:OR’S PAPER SERIES will be
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DIAN WHA
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No. 37, AGNES SURRIAGE, By Edwin Lassetter Byn-
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UMMER SCHOOL FOR BOYS. — PREKSKILL
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Joun N. Titpen, A.M., M.D., Peekskill, N.Y.
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ME. E. DECOMBES’ FRENCH AND ENG
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Sori E
FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1888.
LAST WEEK WE CALLED ATTENTION in a few words to the
struggle which is going on in the New York City Board of Educa-
tion over the election of a superintendent of schools. It is a cause
of gratification to observe that the question has been lifted above
and beyond mere petty detail, and made to rest on broad educa-
tional principles. Commissioner Sprague, who has conducted the
inquiry into the fitness of the present incumbent for re-election, has
shown great ability and a thorough grasp of the real issue. In his
examination of Mr. Jasper he brought out the fact that the latter
did not attend educational meetings, did not write or speak on
education, and for four years had made no attempt to visit and in-
spect the schools systematically. On being pressed for an explana-
tion, Mr. Jasper said that he had no time for any of these things !
In other words, he is so busy marking examination-papers, com-
puting percentages, and doing other trivial clerical work, that he
could not be in any sense of the word a superintendent of schools.
This admission should be a source of shame, both to the Board of
Education that permitted such a state of affairs, and to the super-
intendent who did not protest against it. It proves exactly what
has been charged ; namely, that neither the majority of the Board
of Education nor the city superintendent are fit for the positions they
hold. In a series of interviews with four or five of the most prom-
inent and respected educators in New York City, which a daily
paper has published, substantially the same criticism that we made
in these columns last week occurs. One said, “Our system does
not properly educate, and is conducted too much on the principle
that the teacher’s work is to cram the pupil with hard facts.” An-
other added, “ The theories of the Board of Education are on trial.
. . . The school system in this city is nothing more nor less than a
magnificent piece of machinery, crushing out, whether designedly
or not, all individuality, and tending to repress all the natural
activities of the pupil. Uniformity is the thing aimed at, and the
uniformity achieved is that of mediocrity.” These expressions
‘come from men who have made education a lifelong study, and
who know what they are talking about. The force of such
damaging testimony cannot be easily broken.
THE RESIGNATION OF PROFESSOR LOVERING of the chair at
Harvard which he has held for fifty years calls for more than pass-
ing mention. Professor Lovering first entered the service of the
college as a tutor in 1836, and in 1838 was elected Hollis professor
of mathematics and natural philosophy. During this period much
of the development of physical science has taken place, Professor
Lovering’s contributions winning for him first the presidency of
the American Association, and later that of the American Academy,
over which latter society he still presides, following in the line of
the very distinguished men who have heid the office. In accepting
the resignation, which takes effect next fall, the president and fel-
lows expressed their belief that “as a teacher, an administrative
officer, and a member of the faculty, Professor Lovering has served
Harvard College with perfect fidelity and loyalty, and with sound
discretion. As a public lecturer and man of science, he has done
honor to the university, and to the department of instruction which
he represented.” They also felicitate Professor Lovering and
themselves upon the condition of assured prosperity in which he
leaves the department of physics,—the department to which he
has devoted a long and well-filled life. The successor of Professor
Lovering is Prof. B. O. Peirce, who has given much promise in
mathematical physics.
THE YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK.
THE present number of Sczence is accompanied by a map of the
Yellowstone National Park, reduced from the surveys of the United
States Geological Survey. The four-sheet map of the latter, which
is based on explorations during the years 1884 and 1885, gives for
the first time accurate information regarding the configuration of
mountains and valleys. We do not deem it necessary to dwell
upon the wonders of the park, which have for years and years
proved so attractive to Americans as well as to foreigners, but it
may be of interest to learn what measures have been taken of late
to improve it and to preserve its natural beauties.
As in 1886 Congress failed to make any provision for the pay of
the superintendent of the park, a detail of cavalry was sent to do
duty in the park. One of the principal dangers the protectors of
the park have to contend with are forest-fires, many of which
originate through the carelessness of camping-parties. In August,
1886, many square miles of woods near Gardiner River were thus
destroyed before it was possible to check the progress of the fire.
Some of these forest-fires are attributed to unscrupulous hunters,
who, being prevented from hunting in the park, resort to this
method of driving the game beyond the park limits. It is stated
that the park is surrounded by a class of old frontiersmen, hunters
and trappers, who, as the game diminishes outside the park, in-
crease their efforts, and resort to all sorts of expedients to get pos-
session of that which receives the protection of law. Some fires
seem also to have been started by Bannock Indians from the Lemhi
Reservation.
Another source of danger to the beauties of the park lies in the
vandalism of the visitors, which cannot be condemned too severely.
The acting superintendent, Capt. Moses Harris, says in his report
to the secretary of the interior, 1886, regarding this subject :—
“Tt is apparent from the most casual observation that the means
heretofore employed for the preservation of the natural objects of
wonder and beauty in the park have been entirely inadequate, It
may be said without exaggeration that not one of the notable gey-
ser formations in the park has escaped mutilation or defacement in
some form. Those that have been most fortunate are covered with
lead-pencil inscriptions recording the names of those shallow-
minded visitors to whom such a distinction is a pleasure. A lead-
pencil mark seems to be a very harmless defacement, but names
bearing date of 1880 are still discoverable through the thin deposit
of silica; and, if this marking should go on unchecked. in a very
few years these once beautiful formations will have become un-
sightly and unattractive objects. At the Upper Geyser Basin
names with date of June, 1886, have been chiselled into the solid
geyserite so deep, that, in the slow process of nature, many years
must elapse before this mutilation will be obliterated. Not con-
tent with the defacement of the formations, efforts are constantly
being made to destroy the geysers themselves by throwing into
them sticks, logs of wood, and all sorts of obstructions. The erup-
tive force of several of the geysers has been totally destroyed by
vandalism of this character. The footsteps of the throngs of vis-
itors are wearing away the delicate and lace-like tracery of the
silicious deposits, and in a few years the formations surrounding
the geysers will present the appearance of the worn pavements of
a city street. The wilful defacement of these beautiful objects can
only be prevented by watchful supervision, supported by the rigid
enforcement of lawful penalties. A certain amount of wear and
deterioration, incident to the multitude of visitors, is probably un-
avoidable.”
256
In the annual report for 1887 the superintendent gives an inter-
esting statement regarding the game living in the limits of the
park : —
“Immense herds of elk have passed the winter along the trav-
elled road from Gardiner to Cook City with the same safety which
herds of domestic range cattle enjoy in other localities. Several
stacks of hay, which had been placed along this road in anticipa-
tion of winter freighting, were appropriated and doubtless enjoyed
by these animals. It is difficult to form any accurate estimate con-
cerning the number of elk that passed the winter in the park: cer-
tain it is that the number that wintered in the valley of Lamar
River and on its tributaries have been estimated by all who saw
them at several thousands. The elk are accustomed, when driven
out of the mountains by the snows of winter, to follow down the
course of the mountain-streams into the lower valleys. For this
reason but little efficient protection can be afforded to this species
of large game in the park except upon the Yellowstone River and
its tributaries.
“ The elk which follow down the outward slopes of the moun-
tains surrounding the park, along the tributaries of the Madison
and the Gallatin on the west, or the Snake River on the south,
pass beyond the park limits before the hunting-season permitted by
the territorial laws has closed, and fall an easy prey to the hunters
who are in wait for them.
“A small number of buffalo still remain in the park, but, after
as careful and thorough an investigation as is practicable, I am un-
able to state their numbers with any approach to accuracy. My
impression is, that they have been heretofore somewhat overesti-
mated, and that at the present time they will not exceed one
hundred in number. They are divided into three separate herds.
One of these ranges between Hell-roaring and Slough Creeks in
summer, well up on these streams in the mountains, outside the
park limits ; and in the winter lower down, on small tributaries of
the Yellowstone, within the park. If the reports made several
years ago can be relied on, this herd has rapidly diminished, and
it is doubtful if it now exceeds some twenty or thirty in number.
Whether or not this decrease has been due to illegal killing by
hunters, or to other causes, Iam unable to say, though I do not
believe that many have been killed within the past two years. An-
other herd ranges on Specimen Mountain and the waters of Peli-
can Creek. The herd was seen by reliable parties several times
last winter, and was variously estimated at from forty to eighty.
A traveller on the Cook City road claimed to have counted fifty-
four near the base of Specimen Ridge. A scouting-party which I
sent out during the month of May found but twenty-seven head of
this herd, with four young calves. It is possible that the herd at
this time was broken up, and that but one portion of it was found.
The third herd ranges along the continental divide, and is much
scattered. A band of nine or ten from this herd was seen several
times this spring in the vicinity of the Upper Geyser Basin. It will
take close observation for several years to determine with any cer-
tainty the number of these animals, or whether or not they are
diminishing in numbers. It is practically certain that none have
been killed within the park limits during the past two years, and
yet there is an equal certainty that the present numbers do not ap-
proach those of past estimates.
“Large numbers of antelope are found in the park. A herd of
some two hundred passed the winter within a mile of the town of
Gardiner, pasturing on the plain between the Yellowstone and
Gardiner Rivers, south of the town. They were unmolested,
though it was found necessary to occasionally drive them back to-
wards the hills, that they might not get beyond the park limits.
“The mountain sheep are found in all of the mountain ranges
within the park. A band of seven or eight spent a large portion of
the winter in the cliffs along the travelled road between Mammoth
Hot Springs and Gardiner, and they became so accustomed to the
sight of travellers as to manifest but little more timidity or wild-
ness than sheep of the domestic variety.”
The progress of road-construction in the park has been greatly
retarded by the lack of sufficient appropriations. It is greatly to be
regretted that the beauties of the park, that, in the words of the
statute, has been “set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground
for the benefit of the people,” is not rendered accessible in all its
SCIENCE:
[Vor. XI. No. 278
parts to the public by the construction of roads and bridges, the
cost of which has been estimated at $130,000.
It appears that the only method of enforcing the laws and regu-
lations regarding the park is the expulsion of all offenders, there
existing no court which has jurisdiction over such cases. The
superintendents of the park have for a number of years asked that
such a court be established, but so far Congress has not acted upon
their suggestions.
It seems, however, on the whole, that the park is well protected
from injury, and the steadily increasing number of visitors shows
that it has not decreased in attractiveness either to Americans or
to foreigners.
A NEW SCIENCE OF MIND.
THE authorities of the Collége de France, the representative in-
stitution of the higher education in France, have transformed, as
already reported in Sczence, the chair of the ‘law of nature and of
nations ’ into a chair of ‘experimental and comparative psychology.’
The significance of this action lies in its calling the ‘new psychol-
ogy’ to a co-ordinate rank with the more widely recognized and
historically sanctioned sciences. This honor has naturally caused
considerable inquiry as to the nature and the objects of the new
science ; and M. Paul Janet, the well-known writer on ethical topics,
undertakes to enlighten his countrymen in this regard (‘ Une
Chair de Psychologie Experimentale et Comparée au Collége de
France,’ Revue de Deux Mondes, April 1, 1888).
M. Janet, with perhaps pardonable patriotism, poses the new
psychology as of French origin, but it is really connected with the
past by many roots. It is related to the objective study of mind
furthered by Hartley and Locke, by Descartes and Cabanis; its
welfare has been more essentially secured by the general renais-
sance of physiological and neurological studies of which the name
of Johannes Miiller is representative; the modern alienists drew
attention to the valuable mine of mental phenomena that disease
laid bare; and, after it emerged as anindependent study, it willingly
acknowledged its indebtedness to physics and physiology, as well
as to psychiatry and anthropology, without forgetting its parentage
from the psychology of the past, itself the result of a progressive
philosophic insight.
The term ‘physiological psychology,’ though quite generally in
use to describe the new movement, really expresses but one, though
perhaps the most important and advanced, division of a scientific,
or, as M. Janet prefers, an objective psychology. The new psy-
chology, however, is characterized as much by its method, its spirit,
as by its contents; and it was for this reason that the chair was
called one of ‘comparative’ and ‘ experimental’ psychology.
Difficult though it is to summarize the various lines of interest
that unite workers in the several specialties of the new psychology,
the attempt may be useful. From the physiological side, psychology
finds that the phenomena with which it is concerned occur in con-
nection with a material organism of an intricate and mysterious
construction. The analogues of the acts which we recognize in
ourselves as the indices and concomitants of psychic states are un-
mistakably found in the lower animals. No matter how far down
in the scale we descend, we nowhere lose the thread that makes
the world akin. ‘The tendency of modern inquiry,” says Mr. Ty-
lor, ‘is more and more towards the conclusion, that, if there is
law anywhere, it is everywhere;”’ and in the amceba stretching out
its extemporized arm in response to an irritation in its environment,
psychology detects a real though remote analogy to that varied and
far-sighted adaptation of means to ends that characterizes the life of
a high civilization. The problem, then, is to trace the successive
stages of this co-ordination of nervous structure with psycho-physi-
ological function; to see reflex act emerging into instinct; to see
instinct acquiring more and more adaptability, and sending the
young into the world less freighted with the ready-made acquisitions
of their ancestors, and freer to shape their lives according to out-
ward conditions, until, in the human infant, nature presents at once
the most helpless and the most educable of organisms. This gen-
eral problem includes many special ones. In ascending the evolu-
tionary scale, the nervous system increases in complexity ; the parts
become more specialized and more integrated; finer methods of
June 1, 1888. |
study are needed; and when we ascend to the highest product of
evolution, the cortex of the human cerebrum, we are presented with
the most interesting as well as with the most baffling aspect of the
problem. A combination of methods, applied with patience and
ingenuity, has divested the problem of some of its mystery. By
co-ordinating the symptoms during life with the lesions revealed in
the post-mortem examination ; by exposing the brains of the lower
animals to definite injuries, and carefully recording the results ;_ by
removing certain sense-organs or other parts in developing animals,
and observing the defects of organization in the adult ; by utilizing
the exceptions that nature presents, — we have acquired a knowl-
edge of the laws of the nervous system that would have seemed
Utopian to our fathers, and that has already enabled the surgeon to
predict the location of and remove a tumor in the brain.
The study of the senses has acquired a deeper and a richer mean-
ing since the recognition of its place in a forming science has come
about. Therevolutionary discoveries of Helmholtz, whose success
is so largely due to the union of two sciences, have induced others
to continue the work in a hundred directions ; and as indicative of
the promise that these researches hold out, may be cited the con-
viction of an eminent physicist, Professor Mach, that the next great
movement in the progress of science must come from the union of
psychological points of view with physical methods and results. A
mere mention of the many investigations that owe their origin to
the work of Fechner and the formulation of his psycho-physic law
must suffice to indicate the great activity in this field, and to justify
the title of an experimental psychology. Moreover, the measure-
ments of the time taken up by various psychic processes, the ex-
perimental study of memory, of attention, of the association,of ideas,
of the bilateral functions, of rhythm and the time-sense, of space
and time perceptions, and so on, have led to the development of a
mass of ingenious apparatus, and have made the psychological lab-
‘oratory an indispensable requisite for its satisfactory instruction.
Morbid psychology is a rubric of paramount importance to the
full and clear comprehension of the phenomena of mind. The
genesis of illusions and hallucinations, the perversion of the natural
channels of the emotions, the disintegration of the elements of
personality, the dissolution of the logical powers, —all these prob-
lems transform the apparently wild and chaotic picture of the mad-
house into a sad but interesting record of the process of character
and of mind building. This interest isheightened by remembering
that here lies the key to the understanding of the psychic epidemics
that in the past have upset the rationality of mankind, and trans-
formed the incoherent babbling of some demented soul into the
mysterious utterances of a revealed spirit. It is furthermore heigh-
_ tened by the notice that the phenomena conveniently grouped as
“psychic research’ are attracting, and always willattract. Hypno-
tism, after an adventurous and uncertain existence in the hands of
‘charlatans, has been admitted into science; and although the
literature of the topic, at least in France, is increasing out of all
proportion to our insight into the nature of the phenomena, yet
enough has been established to recognize in this semi-morbid con-
dition the key to the solution of many otherwise barely accessible
problems. With regard to those borderland phenomena, — ‘ telep-
athy,’ ‘clairvoyance,’ and the like,—they illustrate the subtle-
ness of the process by which false systems gain success, and
demonstrate the advisability of having men who can speak on such
topics with the authority of trained experts.
What its votaries have deservedly dignified into the science of
“anthropological psychology ’ offers a most attractive field for re-
search. The customs and thought-habits of primitive peoples not
only record the first stages in the progress that leads to cul-
ture, but prevent the formulation of notions that seem true enough
when tested by our own civilization, but reveal the provinciality of
their origin when applied to more rudimentary conditions of life.
Instead of 7észnzé-ing the many rubrics that here contribute to the
completeness of a scientific psychology, one may refer to the works
of Mr. E. B. Tylor as exemplifying at once the attractiveness of
the subject, and the value of the results, under a learned and skil-
ful treatment.
If we conclude this survey with the mention of the psychology of
the developing child, glimpsing as it does, in the budding capabil-
ities of the infant, the microcosm of the race and an epitome of the
SCIENCE.
257
struggle for civilization, it is not because the lines of research
have been exhausted, but that, with the scope of the science thus
outlined, what remains to be done will probably be suggested by
what has been said. The psychology of the infant is not the only
point at which psychology and education touch; but everywhere
education must refer to psychology, of which, in the highest sense,
it is only the practical application.
The movement has not been without its opponents. The cry
has been raised that it is not a science, but a mere aggregation of
disjointed facts : it shines by borrowed wealth. But the force of
this objection is weakened, if we remember that a science maintains
its individuality quite as uch by the point of view from which it
regards its subject-matter as from the nature of the subject-matter
itself. It is not an evidence of weakness for one science to borrow
from and build upon another; but it testifies to the unity of the
phenomena of nature, and reduces the division of the sciences to
what they at bottom represent, — the classification of the direction
of men’s interests. The chaotic condition of the facts with which
psychology deals is rapidly disappearing, and it may yet hope to
receive a unifying impulse such as Darwinism gave to zoology. It
is, at all events, better to have a collection to arrange when the
true method of arrangement shall be discovered, than not to col-
lect because the ideal arrangement is not yet at our service.
Again: there are some, who, heedless of the caution of George
Henry Lewes, — that the first question is not, “ What does it lead
to?” but, “Is it true ?’’—see in the objective study of mind the
downfall of idealism, and of all the valuable beliefs that have
clustered about it. They stigmatize it as materialistic. This is
surely a misunderstanding. The history of the movement does
not bear out such an accusation. The men the spirit of whose
work is in line with a scientific psychology — Lotze, Helmholtz,
Fechner, Wundt —are all of them the very opposite of materialists.
The new movement does not attempt to usurp the place held by
other studies, except as it is an advance upon them: it does not
pose as the only department of philosophic learning. Its profes-
sors have fortunately been men of liberal sympathies, and deeply
imbued with the historical sense. They do not claim to have
created a science entirely new, unique, and undreamt of, but
appreciate their development from the past. Their aim is to retain
for the study of mental science that high place which has always
been accorded it, by making it progressive and abreast of modern
learning.
Professor Ribot, in the opening lecture of his course at the Col-
lége de France (Revue Sczentzfigue, April 14), taking a bird’s-eye
view of psychological activity in the various countries of civilization,
saw everywhere signs of great promise. The literature is increas-
ing both in value and in quantity. The science has reached the
‘monograph’ stage. Journals specially devoted to its interests,
such as the PhzVlosophische Studien, the Revie Phzlosophique, the
Rivista dé Filosofia Sctentifica, and our own American Fournal
of Psychology, are flourishing ; and laboratories and professorships
for the dissemination of its teaching are being established at the
leading universities. With the advantages that the youth and
plasticity of our educational institutions give them, and the success-
ful examples of the leading universities before them; with the
practical ends that the new movement embraces; and with our
pushing enthusiasm to have every thing that is new and good, — it
seems justifiable to predict for scientific psychology a large and
representative following in this country. JOSEPH JASTROW.
ABORIGINAL ARCHITECTURE IN THE SOUTH-WEST.
A FIELD-PARTY of the Bureau of Ethnology, in charge of Mr.
Victor Mindeleff, has recently returned to Washington, bringing a
large amount of new and valuable material. For a number of
years past Mr. Mindeleff's investigations have been confined to the
architecture of the South-west. One of the most interesting places
visited by him during the past season was a group of cave-dwell-
ings situated about eight miles north-east of Flagstaff, Arizona.
These ruins had previously been visited by Major Powell and Mr.
Stevenson.
The remains occupy the summit of a cinder cone, and extend
some distance down the south side. The rooms are numerous,
\
258
and are excavated in the top and sides of the cone, forming rough,
dome-shaped cavities, with an opening for ingress in the rounded
or flat top of the dome. These cavities are densely grouped on the
summit of the cone, and more scattered lower down. Halfway
from the summit to the lowest level of occupation were found traces
of a continuous rampart wall.
Large lumps of the porous substance composing the hill had been
removed to form the chambers, and piled up outside, forming rude
walls enclosing the openings. Some of the chambers are quite
small, and were probably used for storage, as the only means of
access to them is through the larger rooms. The floor-levels vary
considerably : many of the storage-rooms are several feet higher or
lower than the connecting large room. This difference in floor-
level is in some cases the result of an effort to conform to the topog-
raphy of the site.
The entrances are usually much broken away, but were probably
rectangular. In several cases a rectangular niche or channel, form-
ing part of the entrance-opening, was seen, occurring sometimes in
the centre, sometimes at one end of the side of the same. These
channels may have served as chimneys, as there is considerable
evidence of smoke-blackening in the recesses, as well as on the roof
of the cavities. An abundance of fragments of metates was found,
of the massive type which occurs in the vicinity of Globe, and also
some complete ones. Upon the upper part of the cone a consider-
able number of potsherds were seen, all the fragments quite
small.
Some cliff-dwellings in Walnut Cafion, about twelve miles south-
east of Flagstaff, Arizona, were examined. The ruins are quite
small, rudely and carelessly built, and suggest occupation by a small
community and for a short time. They are distributed over several
ledges of the cafion at varying heights from the stream-bed below.
At the time of the visit the bed of the stream wasdry. Above, ad-
joining the cafion brink on the north, occur several clusters of
rooms which probably had some connection with the cliff-dwellings.
Two piles of stones — the remains of rude walls — were seen at a
distance of three or four miles from the cliff-dwellings. They
seem to be the remains of single rooms. Similar vestiges were
found at points north of the vicinity of the cave-lodges above de-
scribed.
In the vicinity of Keams Cafion, Arizona, an extensive group of
ruins was examined, occurring along the north border of the
Jeditoh valley, on an escarpment overlooking that valley. There
are seven ruins in the group, so far as known, distributed over an
extent of twelve miles. The westernmost and largest ruin is known
as Awatobi, or under its Navajo name of ‘Talla Hogan.’ It has
been often visited by parties of the Bureau of Ethnology and by
others, and has been identified as the Aguatobi of Espejo’s narra-
tive (A.D. 1583). It was occupied only a short time after Espejo’s
visit. The whole group of ruins is directly connected by tradition
with the present inhabited villages of Tusayan (Moki), having been
built and occupied by gentes whose descendants constitute a por-
tion of the present Shimimo Indians. Awatobi is an extensive ruin,
and others of the group are but little inferior in size, though in the
latter, as a rule, no standing wall remains. The direction and dis-
tribution of the walls can, however, be easily traced. All the ruins
of this group occur on the immediate edge of the escarpment, and
overlook wide areas of valley-bottom, including fine stretches of
cultivable land.
The party afterwards camped for some time in the vicinity of
Oraibi, the westernmost and largest of the present villages of Tusa-
yan. The work here was a continuation of the work of a party
which visited Oraibi in 1882, when the village was surveyed. A
study was made of the constructional devices in use at Oraibi and
some of the other villages, and many photographs of interesting
features were made. The methods in use here are more primitive
than in ony other pueblo. They show also less white or Mexican
influence, and consequently are valuable as throwing light on prim-
itive architecture.
Two interesting ruins were discovered and surveyed. They were
both found upon the west side of the ‘ Oraibi Wash,’ a large valley
running north and a little east from Oraibi, from which the ruins
are distant seven and fourteen miles respectively. They both occur
upon the summits of small buttes detached from, but close to, the
SClLENGE:
[VoL. XI. No. 278
edge of the mesa forming the west side of the valley, and are so
situated as to command an extensive view of the valley proper and
of one or more of its smaller branches. The buttes are quite simi-
lar in character. The summit, in both cases, is of small area,
formed of bare rock, almost flat, and breaking off almost continu-
ously around its edge into a ledge eight or ten feet high. The
ruins occupy the whole of the summit, and extend down over the
slopes, which fall away from the base of the ledge. The ruins
themselves are similar in character, and both are directly connected
traditionally with Oraibi. The Navajos also have legends concern-
ing them.
In the northern ruin was found an interesting cave, or under-
ground apartment, occurring within the ruin. The entrance was
very small, and had been, until recently, carefully concealed. It is
said to have been broken open by Navajos in search of ancient
pottery. Inside were found some well-built stone walls with sup-
porting timbers, but the cave was too much filled up with dust and
débrzs to permit much exploration without excavation, for which
both time and means were lacking. A visit was paid to the small
village of Moen-Kopi, which is inhabited during the farming season
only, and occupies the same relation to Oraibi that Ojo Caliente,
Nutria, and Pescado bear to Zuni, —a sort of outlying settlement or
farming pueblo. It is situated on the north side of the Moen-Kopi
Wash, which for some distance above and below this point pre-
sents an almost vertical wall. Here, however, the canon wall
breaks down into a gentle slope, and a small valley puts out to the
north. It is at the junction of this valley with the main canon
that the village is located, about halfway up the slope. In the
smaller valley are a number of fine springs, situated some distance
above the cafion bottom. These springs probably determined the
location of the settlement. The whole of the valley was under
cultivation, being irrigated from these springs, as was also a con-
siderable portion of the bottom of the canon proper, over-
looked by the village. Farther down were large fields of corn
and wheat. One of the most interesting things to be seen in this
vicinity is the cotton-fields. Cotton was grown by these Indians
prior to their discovery by the Spaniards, and occupies a very im-
portant place in their mythology. It is a sacred plant, and gar-
ments or articles of apparel made from it are used only in the sa-
cred ceremonials. At the present time Moen-Kopi is the only
place where cotton is grown, but tradition mentions several other
localities. Seeds of North Carolina cotton and Maryland water-
melons, sent out in 1885, were found to have deteriorated Eut
slightly, though they had passed through two plantings. The cot-
ton is not allowed to ripen on the stalk; but the pods are broken
off while yet green, and laid in the sun, upon the roofs of the
houses, until they burst open. This village is but fifteen or twenty ~
years old, but has been built on the site of an older settlement.
Subsequently the party spent six weeks at the Chaco ruin. These
ruins have been frequently described, and ground plans of some of the
larger ones have been published. An accurate survey of the more im-
portant ruins was made, and the plans secured reveal many impor-
tant points. The drawings and descriptions of Simpson and Jackson,
made in 1849 and 1877, are of so general a nature as to be mis-
leading. No such symmetry, for example, as that portrayed in
their plans, is to be found: in this respect the Chaco ruins are not
superior to hundreds of others. The quality of the masonry has
also been much exaggerated, though doubtless unintentionally. A
close examination revealed great ignorance, on the part of the
builders, of some of the simplest principles of construction. An-
other feature of interest was the very plain evidence of successive
or different occupation. In Pueblo Bonito, the largest ruin of the
group, three distinct types of construction were found, lapping over
and extending into each other. Several ruins not previously known
were surveyed, and others were visited. Mr. Morgan attempted to
identify the Chaco ruins with the celebrated ‘Seven Cities of
Cibola;’ but the number is nearly seventy, instead of seven. Upon
the exposed or south side of the cafion bottom are a great number of
ruins which so far have been overlooked, though they are not in-
ferior in extent to the well-preserved specimens under the north
cliff; they are, however, almost completely obliterated through the
action of the elements. There is no reason to suppose, however,
that the ruins on the south side of the canon bottom are more
June 1, 1888. ]
ancient than those upon the northern side: their exposed position
has simply hastened their destruction.
Late in the season some of the party visited and made a survey
of the Pueblo of Jemez, situated upon a creek of the same name, a
small tributary of the Rio Grande. An accurate ground plan was
made, corresponding in every respect to the plans made in previous
years of the pueblos of the Little Colorado.
At various times during the progress of the field-work, opportu-
nities were afforded of making studies of Navajo architecture.
These Indians build a house of a rudely conical form, composed of
brush and earth upon a supporting framework of timber ; and their
‘hogans’ are of considerable interest, and throw much light on
primitive house-construction. While the party was at Keam’s
Cation a large number of these houses were examined, under the
guidance and with the help of some of the best men in the tribe.
No less than five distinct types of structures were found, although
the details of construction are minutely prescribed and rigidly ad-
hered to. The ‘hogans’ always front the east; and the erection of
one is an important and a sacred event to those interested, being
accompanied by many ceremonial observances and an elaborate
ritual.
The material collected during the field-season will be incorpo-
rated into reports now being prepared by the Bureau of Ethnology.
EXPLORATIONS IN GREENLAND.
In the year 1886 the Danish Government sent out an expedition
for the exploration of the region of Upernivik and Tassiussak, which
had hitherto been almost unknown. Lieutenants Ryder and Bloch
wintered in Upernivik, and intended to set out early in spring onan
expedition northward. Unfortunately the winter proved to be very
severe, and the dreaded dog's disease swept away the dogs of the
natives, compelling the explorers to start as soon as the increasing
daylight permitted, as the dogs were wanted for sealing in April
and May. On Feb. 21, 1887, they left Upernivik, and on the fol-
lowing day arrived at Tassiussak, the most northern trading-
station. Here they procured a few dogs, and continued their
northward journey, the thermometer ranging constantly under the
freezing-point of mercury. As the Greenlanders did not build
snow-houses, travelling was very difficult, and the explorers as well
as their Eskimo companions suffered severely from frost-bites.
The difficulties were increased by deep snow; and as no ice-bears
were met with, on which the travellers had to rely for dog’s food,
they were compelled very soon to turn back. The failure of this
expedition to reach the northern parts of Melville Bay is to be
greatly regretted; but its results show that an exploration of the
coast by means of dog-sledge, and early in spring, is not at all dif-
ficult.
The travellers reached Upernivik in March, and in April ex-
plored the large fiord east of the colony. Here the velocity of the
glacier which empties itself into the sea was measured, and found
to be thirty-three feet, while in August it amounted to ninety-nine
feet in twenty-four hours. This result is very remarkable, as
measurements of the southern glaciers show a comparatively uni-
form velocity throughout the year.
On May 7 the first sign of open water was seen on the western
horizon; on May 23 the first whaler made his appearance on the
outside islands; but the harbor of Upernivik was not open until
June 11. This was considered a late date for the breaking-up of
the land-ice on the Greenland coast; while in Melville Bay it lasted
well into July or August, and on the west coast of Baffin Bay even
until late in August. On June 26 Lieutenants Bloch and Ryder
made another start northward with two boats. Their progress
was greatly retarded by the prevailing fogs, while drifting icebergs
made travelling dangerous. On Aug. 4 they reached their extreme
northern point in 74° 25’ north latitude. The sea farther to the
northward was covered with ice; and as the homebound vessel,
which the travellers were instructed to take at Upernivik, left on
Aug. 15, they were obliged to return.
Among the results of this journey one is of great interest, — the
fact that even the extreme northern point reached by the expedi-
tion is inhabited by Eskimo, who visit it every spring. The most
northern native village is Itivliarsuk in 73° 30’ north latitude; but
30"
Kingistonaeatit
(auum asf)
‘30
Jor
SCIENCE:
ALISON pay iN
Many ice fetty t
(0. Doce u,)
@.
259
SEETCH MAP
or 718
ANI phe
\ \ WEST COAST OF GREENLAND
\ DY
LIEUTS. RYDER AND BLOCH:
Doptha in fathoma:
#_ Nativo villagea.
} Ruins of native villages.
@ Trding Porta.
eparcenit'
Wg
piackLErony =, Tie
& Re
.
RY |
a Wy
Thue
a Meson eS,
Upermvip 5TY,
owe i
Geer
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J
i
é
ee ci
Kingar
2
260
farther north numerous ruins of villages were found, and the
Eskimo had names for every point and island. Thus it appears
that the distance between the North Greenlanders and the inhabit-
ants of Smith Sound is not so great as was generally assumed, and
it becomes very probable that intercourse between these tribes in a
limited degree existed not very long ago, or maybe still exists.
SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON.
Collectors and Collections of Jewels and Precious Stones : an Interesting
Chapter by George F. Kunz. —A Steel ‘Vacuum’ Balloon: the Ab-
surd Proposition of a Scientific Crank indorsed by a Committee of
Congress. — Death of Prof. E. B. Elliott: a Great Loss to Science.
The Tape-Worm in Sheep.
Collections of Jewels and Precious Stones.
THE following is an extract from a paper lately prepared by Mr.
George F. Kunz of Tiffany & Co., New York, which will be used
as the basis of a report on precious stones, which will appear in the
volume on ‘Mineral Resources of the United States,’ to be issued
by the United States Geological Survey a few months hence : —
“A regrettable dispersion of jewels and precious stones took
place on May 12 and 14, 1886, when the famous collection formed
by the late Henry Philip Hope, and exhibited at the South Kensing-
ton Museum for many years, was sold at auction. The Hope col-
lection included the saphzre mervezlleux of Madame de Genlis’s
“Tales of the Castle ;’ the King of Candy’s cat’s-eye, the largest
known, having a diameter of an inch and a half; the Mexican sun-
opal, carved with the head of the Mexican sun-god, and histori-
cally known since the sixteenth century ; an enormous pearl, the
largest known, weighing three ounces, and two inches in length ;
the aquamarine sword-hilt made for Murat, King of Naples; and
also many curious diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and several
hundred unique and magnificent gems. Such a collection should
be preserved intact as a national possession.
“Tn 1886 it was decided by the French Assembly that the crown
jewels, with the exception of the famous ‘ Regent’ diamond, twa
of the mazarines, and a few historic pieces reserved for the national
museums, should be sold at public auction. These exceptions
were made because it was feared that they would fall into the
hands of Americans. The sale of this great historic collection
took place in May, 1887. The 48 parcels were subdivided into 146
lots; and there were 68 buyers, 12 of whom bought over 1,000,000
francs’ worth each. The largest lot, the great corsage, which sold
for 811,000 francs, was purchased by a single American firm, the
largest buyer at the sale. The purchases of the firm amounted to
2,249,600 francs, or about 34 per cent of the entire sum realized ;
while as to quality, the same firm obtained more than two-thirds of
the finest gems. Among them were the three mazarines; a pear-
shaped rose brilliant, weighing 242% carats, for 128,000 francs; a
pear-shaped white brilliant, weighing 22} carats, for 81,000 francs ;
a white brilliant, weighing 287% carats, for 155,000 francs; and an
oval brilliant, weighing 18,, carats, for 71,000 francs ; or 435,000
francs for the four. All but one of their purchases were secured
by private American customers. The great interest attached to
this sale was due not only to the fact that many of the gems were
of very fine quality, but also to their historic associations. The
history of many of them could be traced back several hundred
years. In its way this sale did more than any thing that had be-
fore occurred to establish a reputation abroad for American taste,
wealth, and enterprise.
“ The collection of antique gems, numbering 331 pieces, formed
by the Rev. C. W. King of Trinity College, England, the greatest
of all writers on engraved gems, was sent to the United States for
sale in 1881. This collection represents the keystone and the
summing-up of Mr. King’s vast knowledge, and none has ever been
more thoroughly studied. His numerous writings mark an epoch
in the study of this branch of archeology; and only the loss of his
sight led him to part with his treasures. The growing interest
and taste in archeological matters in the United States induced
him to send it here to be sold intact. In October, 1881, through
the friendly mediation of Mr. Feuardent, it was purchased, and
presented to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, by Mr. John Tay-
SCIENCE:
[VoL. XI. No. 278
lor Johnson, then president of the museum, where it has since re-
posed.
“Near it will be placed the Somerville collection. Mr. Somer-
ville, a Virginian by birth, and a gentleman of fortune and artistic
tastes, while spending the past thirty-two years of his life in Eu-
rope, Asia, and Africa, has collected cameos, intaglios, seals, and
other historical gems; and, as a result of his liberal expenditure of
time and money, he is to-day the owner of one of the most unique
and valuable collections of engraved gems in the world, numbering
over 1,509 specimens, including Egyptian, Persian, Babylonian,
Etruscan, Greek, Roman, Aztec, and Mexican glyptic or jewel-
carving art. All of these are represented by specimens of singular
excellence, affording us a panoramic view of the achievements of
civilized man in this direction. This remarkable collection, now at
his home in Philadelphia, has been loaned to the Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art, New York, where it will soon be placed on exhibition,
and the public will be afforded every facility to study the beautiful
achievements of the glyptic art.
“Of greater antiquity and archzologic value, because represent-
ing a period before gems were cut in the form of intaglios, is the
collection of the Rev. W. Hayes Ward, consisting of 300 Babylonian,
Persian, and other cylinders. Two hundred of these he himself
collected in Babylon and its vicinity, and sold to the museum at a
nominal figure. Since that time he has collected 100 more cylin-
ders. Many of them date from 2500 B.C. to 300 B.C., and are cut in
lapis lazuli, agate, carnelian, hematite, chalcedony, jasper, sard, etc.
“The death of Dr. Isaac Lea of Philadelphia, which occurred
Dec. 19, 1886, in his ninety-fifth year, robbed the world of a great
investigator in the field of precious stones. During the last twenty
years of his exceptionally long and useful life, he devoted almost
his entire time to studying the microscopic inclusions in gems and
minerals ; and the cabinet he left contains thousands of specimens
of rubies, sapphires, chrysoberyls, tourmalines, garnets, quartz, etc.,
all of which he had subjected to the most rigid microscopic scru-
tiny, noting every interesting fact on the accompanying label.
Only a small part of his work on this highly interesting subject has
been published by the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences, in two
papers (in 1869 and 1876), but Dr. Lea made ample provision in
his will for the publication of the remainder. His extensive collec-
tions of minerals and shells were bequeathed to the National
Museum; and the gem-collection, to his daughter, Miss Lea.
Two months before his death, I spent two hours with him, exam-
ining a series of quartz inclusions, over which he worked with all
the enthusiasm and brightness of youth.
“ One of the many benefits traceable to the New Orleans Exhi-
bition was the appropriation given to the National Museum for
their exhibit. This was wisely expended by Prof. F. W. Clarke in
the purchase of a complete series of precious stones, many of
which, although not expensive, are still the finest in the United
States, from an educational standpoint. Since the exposition many
fine specimens have been added by purchase and donation, espe-
cially the diamonds and pearls presented by the Iman of Muscat
to President Buchanan, consisting of 138 diamonds and 150 pearls,
all of good quality. The collection numbers about 1,000 speci-
mens, and embraces almost every known variety of precious stone,
many of them in very fine examples.”
A Proposed Steel ‘Vacuum’ Balloon.
The committee of the House of Representatives on acoustics and
ventilation has actually reported favorably a bill appropriating
seventy-five thousand dollars to subsidize a man who thinks he can
construct a steel ‘vacuum’ balloon of great power. He is to be
allowed to use the facilities of one of the navy-yards for the build-
ing of his machine, and is to have the money as soon as he has
expended seventy-five thousand dollars of private capital upon his
air-ship.
One of the mathematical physicists of Washington was asked by
a member of Congress whether such a balloon could be successfully
floated. He set to work upon the problem, and here are some of
his results, which are rather curious :—
A common balloon is filled with hydrogen-gas, which, being
lighter than air, causes the balloon to rise and take up a load with
it. But, as the pressure of the gas within is equal to the pressure
June 1, 1888.]
of the atmosphere without, no provision other than a moderately
strong silk bag is required to prevent collapse. The inventor of the
proposed steel balloon hopes to gain greater lifting-power by using
a vacuum instead of gas, the absence of substance of any kind being
lighter than even hydrogen-gas. But he has to contend with the
tendency of the shell to collapse from the enormous pressure of the
atmosphere on the outside, which would not be counterbalanced
by any thing inside of it.
The first question which presented itself was, how thick could
the metal of the shell be made, so that the buoyancy of the sphere,
which would be the most economical and the strongest form in
which it could be constructed, would just float it without lifting
any load? The computations showed that the thickness of the
metal might be .000055 of the radius of the shell. For example: if
the spherical shell was one hundred feet in diameter, the thickness
of the metal composing it could not be more than one-thirtieth of
an inch, provided it had no braces. If it was thicker, it would be
too heavy to float. Now, if it had no tendency to buckle, which of
course it would, the strength of the steel would have to be equiva-
lent to a resistance of more than 130,000 pounds to a square inch
to resist absolute crushing from the pressure of the air on a cross-
section of the metal. Steel of such high crushing-strength is not
ductile, and cannot be made into such ashell. If the balloon isto be
braced inside, as the inventor suggests, just as much metalas would
be used in constructing the braces would have to be subtracted
from the thickness of that composing the shell. Of course, such a
shell would buckle long before the thickness of the metal of which
it was composed was reduced to .000055 of its radius.
words, it is mathematically demonstrated that no steel vacuum
balloon could be constructed which could raise even its own weight.
This is an illustration of how intelligently Congress would be
likely to legislate on scientific matters unguided by intelligent scien-
tific advice.
Death of Prof. E. B. Elliott.
Prof. E. B. Elliott, actuary of the Treasury Department, died
suddenly of heart-disease on Thursday, May 24. He was nearly
sixty-five years of age, and had been in the employ of the govern-
ment since 1861. Professor Elliott was born in Sweden, Monroe
County, N.Y., was graduated from Hamilton College, and, after
teaching, became interested in the early development of telegraphy,
—an interest which he retained as long as he lived. His great
skill in making computations led him later to become the actuary
of a life-insurance company in Boston, which position he filled until
called to a similar office in the United States Sanitary Commission,
in 1861.
In 1865 he was secretary of the commission for revising the
United States revenue laws, and in 1871 entered the Civil-Service
Reform Commission. His service as actuary of the Treasury De-
partment has covered a great amount of statistical and computation
work, which has been of the greatest value both to the govern-
ment and to Congress. Professor Elliott was a member of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science, of which he
was chosen one of the vice-presidents in 1882. He was always
very active, and presided over the section of economic science and
statistics. He was also a member of the Washington Philosophi-
cal Society, and, at a meeting reviewing the work of the last ten
years, it was reported that he had presented more papers to that
society in that period than any other member. He was a member
of the Cosmos Club and of many foreign learned societies.
He has published a great number of papers on mathematical
physics and statistics, and in 1863 was a member of the Interna-
tional Statistical Congress in Berlin. He was greatly interested in
horology, and an active member of the American Horological
Society. At the time of his death he was engaged upon some im-
portant original investigations in that line. He was the first to
have a clock constructed with hands to indicate standard time in
the different divisions of this continent, long before any one hoped
that it would be so generally adopted in the United States.
Professor Elliott prepared the tables of weights and measures in
the appendix of Webster’s ‘ Counting-House Dictionary,’ and also
those constructed on the metric system. He made his greatest
reputation by his many valuable statistical reports on coinage,
weights and measures, and on bonds. Some of these were pub-
SCIMN Ci
In other
261
lished in the last ‘ United States Census Report,’ especially in the
volume on vital statistics. He was a very genial and companion-
able man, rather contemplative, weighing carefully every new fact
brought to his attention, and striving to foresee its effects. He
will be greatly missed in Washington, and it will be very difficult
to fill his place.
The Tape-Worm in Sheep.
Over eighty-five per cent of the sheep examined in Colorado last
summer, according to a report made by Dr. Cooper Curtice to the
Biological Society at a recent meeting, were infected by a tape-
worm which is apparently indigenous to the Western country.
Similar parasites had been described in 1856 by Dr. K. M. Diesing
from specimens obtained by Natesen from Brazilian deer ; but since
that time the species was apparently unnoticed. This species is
interesting, first, on account of its peculiar anatomy and the life-
history of the individual parasite; second, because of the history of
this species, which indicates it to be the first acquisition of a native
parasite by the sheep on this continent, and its subsequent distri-
bution in the United States; and, third, from an economic stand-
point, the discussion of it including a consideration of the disease
produced in sheep — the actual loss in death-rate, in wool and mut-
ton, due to the parasite — and of the problem of cure and preven-
tion of the disease.
After describing the parasite, Dr. Curtice said that these tenia
occur in the duodenum and gall-ducts of Western lambs and sheep.
They sometimes fill each. So tightly do they pack the gall-duct at
times, that they cannot be withdrawn without breaking them, and
the duct itself is distended by them. The smallest tania, about
half a centimetre long, are always found in the duodenum. They
may be found from May to January: no observations were made in
the winter months. From the duodenum they pass into the gall-
duct, and occasionally into the pancreatic duct. The tenia are
usually found in assorted sizes, from the young to the adult, but all
may be nearly equal in size. From observations made upon a great
number of lambs, it seems that these parasites cannot mature in less
than six, or possibly ten months; so that the taenia in lambs would
not be capable of infecting other lambs until the former became
yearlings. No stages intermediate between the embryo escaping
from the parent segment and the tenia five millimetres long were
found.
As this species has not been described in Europe, and has not
been noticed in eastern United States, it seems to have been ac-
quired by the sheep since their importation into this country. Span-
ish sheep were first imported about 1820. From the early impor-
tation of sheep into Mexico and lower California arose those im-
mense herds of mission sheep, and eventually the millions of sheep
now found in the West. These sheep are rapidly being interbred
with better grades of Eastern sheep; but the Mexican sheep fur-
nished the material with which the sheep-men of the Plains began.
The history of the acquisition and distribution of this parasite is
believed, then, to be coincident with the history of these sheep since
their arrival in this country. This parasite, originally affecting deer
on this continent, is believed by Dr. Curtice to have become in-
grafted into sheep, animals with similar life-habits, and, through the
favorable conditions of ranching, to have spread rapidly with the
increase of the flocks. Its distribution is now from Oregon and
Wyoming southward, and Nebraska and Kansas westward.
The disease they cause in sheep makes its appearance gradually,
and increases as the parasites grow. It is characterized by a hide-
bound, tucked-up condition of the lambs, which is indicative of lean,
ill-conditioned animals. Sheep may be apparently strong and
healthy, and still harbor a number of these parasites. The poorer
lambs generally die from exposure to inclement weather, or from
smothering by piling on top of each other in storms in their en-
deavors to keep warm. The actual loss by death among the lambs
is probably the least portion of it; that occasioned by the dimin-
ished amount of fat, muscle, and wool, which, though small for
each animal, is constantly present from year to year, forms the
larger, and aggregates a total loss to the sheep-husbandry of the
Plains which is probably greater than that due to the scab-insect.
As yet no effective medicinal remedy for the destruction of these
parasites has been discovered. Something may be done in the way
of prevention; but, until the complete life-history of the taenia is
262
known, an entirely satisfactory plan of prevention cannot be pro-
posed. At present, watering from troughs instead of from prairie
pools, pasturing the lambs on prairie not recently pastured on by
older sheep, and, after weaning, removing them to fresh pastures,
arerecommended. The practice of winter feeding on grain and hay
undertaken by ranchmen is especially advisable in keeping up the
health of infected animals.
ELECTRICAL SCIENCE.
Long-Distance Telephone-Lines.
IT is known that there is considerable difficulty in transmitting
speech by telephones over long distances, unless special precautions
are taken in the construction of the lines. Dr. Wietlisbach has
investigated the best conditions for telephone-lines, and has arrived
at the following laws for the effect of the disturbing causes :—
1. The greater the resistance and leakage, the smaller is the
strength of the received current.
2. Self-induction favors high notes.
3. Capacity favors low notes.
4. The resistance diminishes the effect of self-induction, and in-
creases the effect of capacity.
5. Leakage diminishes the effect of capacity, and increases that
of self-induction.
6. In a conductor having both self-induction and capacity, the
relative intensity of the undulations increases and decreases peri-
odically with the rise in the height of the note.
7. The magnetic permeability and the polarization of the con-
ductor destroy the clearness of the transmission.
If all of the factors remained constant, it would be possible to
design a line in which the relations between capacity, self-induc-
tion, resistance, etc., were such that all notes would be transmitted
with equal clearness. For example: in a submarine cable where
the capacity is great, a man’s voice is heard farther and more dis-
tinctly than a woman’s, since capacity favors low notes as compared
with high notes ; but it would be possible to so increase the self-
induction of the line that both would be heard with equal distinct-
ness, and at the same time both would be more perfectly repro-
duced, since all of the tones would be given their proper relative
values.
Unfortunately this cannot be readily done in practice, since the
leakage, which diminishes the effect of capacity and increases that
of self-induction, is in most lines a quantity which varies with the
state of the weather. Dr. Wietlisbach thinks, therefore, that the
best way to build a line is to make all of the effects as small as
possible, using a looped circuit of copper wire of low resistance and
capacity. The empirical rule used in practice is to make the prod-
uct of the resistance and capacity of any line less than a certain
constant which has been determined by experiment. One would
suppose, however, that, by roughly adjusting the capacity and self-
induction of the line, much clearer speech would result.
POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITATIONS OF CHEMICAL GENERA-
TORS OF ELECTRICITY. — Mr. Francis B. Crocker read a paper
before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers with the
above title, which cannot fail to be of interest at the present time ;
more especially as primary-battery schemes seem about to invade
this country from what has been until now their home, England.
Mr. Crocker first gives the ordinary formula for calculating the
electro-motive force from the energy of chemical combinations that
go on,— & = 4.16 aH, “where £& is the electro-motive force, a
the electro-chemical equivalent (grams per coulomb), and 7 is
the number of heat-units (gram-degrees) produced per gram of
material by the given combination.” It should be pointed out here
that this formula is slightly inaccurate, as has been shown by Wil-
lard Gibbs and Helmholtz. Gibbs gives it as (putting in the
above form) E = 4.16 aH ae where 7 is the temperature of
dissociation, and 7 the temperature of the cell. We would expect,
then, that the electro-motive forces obtained from experiment, and
those calculated from the uncorrected formula, would be slightly
SCIENCE:
[ Vor. Babs Noes
different, the latter being slightly higher.
interesting :— ~
The following table is
Combining with |
| Bromine. \| Iodine.
Chlorine.
Metalic’ at | a
Calcu- Deter- Calcu- Deter- Calcu- Deter-
lated. | mined. || lated. | mined. || lated. | mined.
WEYENCAO Mo casuoscogue & S600 3-24 | 3 10 — | — || — | —
7d Co apoanonodosda coon obooN 2.09 211 1.63 1-79(?)|| 1.05 | I 25
(CRIM SGaooscscasa ScouneD: 2.00 1.90 1 58 1.58 -97 | X.12
INERT, aonecsossencaese 2.30 2.00 1-70 | 1.53 \| I.00 | 88
IGGNoGaosasogda aetiesvda¢endo 1.75 1 60 1.50 | 1.30 85 -68
Cobalt 1.64 1.43 — | — - | —
INDORS coneo loons acdeoemssce 1.57 1 33 | = | — | — =
ADIN s goood oosodoodeetasennes 1.70 r.61 || 1.50 I 30 — —
WEES copesace coca. o2b05207 1.76 1.63 || 1.38 1.33 85 83
(Coppenee eee eeeeecerrrirr 1.40 1.32 1 1.07 1.02 69 64
SUMGP ooonosbabdes coogesdr ocd 1.25 1.11 97 | 95 -59 65
INOGTNOMc.cosshad ootmondooce 1.30 1.22 || = || — | — _
Bismuth.... ... ns[elslofein = vejeielaiee 1.30 I 21 | — — - —
The table of costs is, however, really important, especially to in-
vestors. In the table there is given opposite each substance the
amount consumed and the cost for a horse-power hour. To find
the total cost of a cell, the sum of the costs of its constituents
should be taken. These cells all employ zinc as the positive ele-
ment.
o the - ok 2
E 52 5 2a8
> Te a pee S$)
7 $ En Ss Bee
Material ; ei 2 5 Pacns
° pa) A 3s
5 5 om =) oS
Zinc used with following Electro- Oe oe Zs S S 5 =2
at m tH ee om 2 Sots
Negative or Depolarizing Ele- 2 Os 3 BZ ou <
As rs = 2 Ogee
ments. £ er 5 = oo 2,
i ras =) Sz Pine
i} ve
a “ aS 2 5
Volts. | Pounds. Pounds. Gio) ws
Bree Odie) 2 cytes eielele eleisiel- = isiolel-ln) 1.200 1.67 6.53 $22.97
Hree|Dromin ese eee eer err mien 1.790 | 1.12 2 76 1.12
Hreeichlorinesener ee merle tletle rte 2.110 | -95 I 04 =
Mreeioxyg ene eee eheeeiee cnet 1.900 1.05 26 _
Bireersulphu tereliicslemtesiieciemetrtcter 950 | 2.10 1.03 17
Chemical Compounds.
WiiGisosoonsbapcnécndon sasot ease 500 4-00 1.10 =
Nitric acid.. | I goo | 1.05 2.04 20
@hromic acid... .-....--. ...-.--- | 2 000 1.00 1-03 28
Copper sulphate (anhyd.)........ | 1.079 1.86 Aechy || =
0G os crystals....... ..| 1.079 1.86 7-13 50
Iron perchloride.......-.......-... | 1.550 1.30 6.50 | 74
: |
Silvenich loridemejiisteteristecietelats 1.060 1.89 8.32 133 25
Mercury sulphate.........-...... I 420 1.41 10.70 5 45
|
Mixtures. |
Potassium bichromate (3 parts) )
aoe 2.000 1.00 5.08 27
Sulphuric acid (7 parts) iol
Potassium bichromate (3 parts) | |
~.| 2.000 1.00 7.04 42
Sulphuric acid (4 parts) j
In this table the products of the action are not taken into account.
In some cases these products would be of considerable value, as
June 1, 1888. ]
Mr. Crocker points out. There seems in the list no practical bat-
tery that will give a horse-power hour for less than twenty cents, —
an enormous price compared with the cost of electric energy from a
dynamo. One thing must be borne in mind: the cost of materials
is obtained from price-lists of chemical companies, and would be
materially decreased if the substances were made in large quanti-
ties. It will be seen that it will be impossible, however, to reduce
the prices, just at present, to compete with a dynamo supplying
energy at less than one cent per horse-power hour: so, while pri-
mary batteries have an important and extended field for telephonic
purposes, telegraph-lines, bells, etc., they can hardly succeed in the
more serious work of supplying power and light.
THE SEEL INCANDESCENT-LAMP FILAMENT. —A patent has
just been issued in this country for an incandescent-lamp filament
which is both novel and successful. The following is the method of
preparation: threads of cotton, silk, or other vegetable fibre are
steeped in a solution consisting of a silicate or salt, gum-senegal,
and caustic soda, and then rolled between warm grooved rollers.
The thread is then carbonized inthe usual manner. Toregulate the
resistance of the resulting filament, it is placed in a vessel into
which melted paraffine is run, and when the latter hardens an elec-
tric current is sent through the filament. As the thread heats, part
of the paraffine nearest to it is liquefied, and, as the heat becomes
more intense, carbon is deposited on the filament, the solid outer
shell of the paraffine preventing any air from getting to it. The
resistance gradually decreases as more carbon is deposited. When
it reaches its proper value, the current is cut off, the whole of the
paraffine melted, and the thread removed. The gum-senegal com-
pletely fills the pores of the filament, making it very strong, while
the silicate and caustic soda surround the inner core. We have,
then, three layers, — the central carbonized thread, the silicate, and
the outer layer of deposited carbon.
THE CARRIERE ACCUMULATOR. — Several attempts have been
made to produce a secondary battery in which the supports are of
carbon instead of lead. A great difficulty in the present types of
secondary battery lies in their excessive weight, caused to a great
extent by the plates used as a support for the ‘active’ material, the
inactive support-plates sometimes making up half the weight of the
complete cell. Carbon would, for some reasons, make an excellent
support for the active material : it is light, a good conductor, and it
is not attacked by the acid in the cell. It has been found, however,
that carbon plates will quickly disintegrate when used for battery
purposes. If the active material is in cavities in the carbon plate,
the expansion on discharge will gradually disintegrate the plate ;
while, if it is applied on the surface, it will soon drop off. M. Car-
riére makes his plates especially dense and hard, and, after apply-
ing the active material, he puts them horizontally in a cell with
cocoanut-fibre between the plates. Whether this peculiar disposi-
tion of the plates and their special construction will be effective, can
only be determined by experiment.
HEALTH MATTERS.
Wear and Tear of the Medical Profession.
THE State Board of Health of Illinois has recently published a
tabulation and analysis of a mass of material which has been accu-
mulating during the past ten years, bearing on the wear and tear of
the medical profession of that State. This report, which is written
by Dr. John H. Rauch, the able secretary of the board, is a most
valuable contribution to the subject, and brings prominently to view
the dangers incident to a medical life. Dr. Rauch says that for
more than ten years he has been impressed in a general way with
a conviction that this wear and tear was underestimated; that the
active practice of medicine was not so conducive to longevity as is
popularly supposed, nor as writers on such subjects, basing their
conclusions on the data obtained from medical biographies, cyclo-
peedias, etc., had been led to believe.
The source of error in this latter instance is obvious. The sub-
jects of biographies, cyclopedia articles, memoirs, etc., are neces-
sarily the men who have attained eminence, or at least prominence ;
and, in the nature of the case, prominence in the medical profession
SCIEN CE.
263,
is largely the fruit of long service and length of days. In other
words, the exceptional class which, partly by very reason of long
life, has attracted most attention, has been hitherto taken as an in-
dication of the longevity of the profession as a whole. Thus we
find one writer (Dr. George M. Beard) citing the deaths of 490
Massachusetts physicians whose average age at death was 57 years,
and 35 out of every 100 of whom attained to 70 years. The aver-
age age of the subjects of Gross’s ‘ Medical Biography’ was 59
years, although it is ingenuously added that these “ included several
who died before their prime.” Similarly Thacher's ‘ Medical Bi-
ography’ makes mention of 145 physicians, and the fact that their
average age at death was 62.8 years is quoted —as are the other
instances — as proof of the longevity of medical men. Still another
fact should be taken into consideration in the case of the class who
figure in biographies. It is composed very largely of city physi-
cians, and of the men who, in the smaller towns, are in a position
to select their practice and adjust their labors with some regard to
regular hours of sleep, meals, and relaxation. Comfortably housed
at home, properly protected from the weather when making visits,
free from the harassing cares of the res anguste@ domz,and beyond
the torturing anxiety which too often besets the struggle for practice,
—the conditions of life in these cases are undoubtedly favorable to-
longevity. But these are the fortunate few, who bear no more nu-
merical relation to the rank and file of the profession than the
general officers do to the rank and file of an army.
Compared with these biographical subjects, upon whose length
of honorable and successful years is predicated the assertion that
the wear and tear of the profession does not prevent its members.
from attaining a high average longevity — compared with these, Dr.
Rauch has, as the result of an extensive correspondence and syste-
matic record, obtained data which show that the average age at
death (in Illinois, at least)is not much over 52 years; and that only
about 11, instead of 35, in every 100 attain the scriptural limit of
threescore years and ten.
In older communities it is entirely probable that this rate may be
exceeded. In Massachusetts, for example, the average age at death
of 1,166 physicians, occurring during a period of nearly thirty-two:
years, is given as about 55 years; but the Illinois statistics — col-
lected with painstaking care, and dealing with more than double
the number living annually —do not furnish any such favorable
result. To avery great extent the discrepancy between Illinois and
Massachusetts is due, no doubt, to the different conditions which
obtain in the two communities, — the one a comparatively newly
settled State, with a population containing less than the normal
proportion of the middle-aged and beyond; the other, one of the
oldest settled commonwealths, with an excess of ages beyond the
middle life, and with what Dr. Holmes calls the ‘‘ adjustable condi-
tions of living ’’ so perfected as to materially conduce to the pro-
longation of life. But in addition to this difference there must also.
be taken into consideration the radical difference in the modes of
collecting the data upon which the average age at death has been
computed.
For Illinois these data have been obtained through official rela-
tions with an aggregate of some 14,000 physicians during a period
of over ten years. The fersonmel may be taken as fairly represen-
tative of the profession generally, since it is composed of about
one-sixth of physicians of a large city, Chicago, and the remainder
of physicians of smaller cities and towns. During these ten years.
there has been an average of 6,000 living per annum, and the ag-
gregate deaths have been about 800, or an annual death-rate of
13.3 per thousand. These round numbers and the period covered
are cited to show that the data are extensive enough to insure sub-
stantially trustworthy results in the tabulations and deductions.
An examination of the tables shows, that while the death-rate of
physicians in Illinois for the first few years after entering upon the
practice of medicine is lower than that of all males in Illinois, and
greatly less than that of the whole population of the country at
large, it increases beyond that of the former class during the decade
from 4o to 50, and is greater than that of the latter class in the
next decade.
The obvious inference is, that physicians, on entering practice,
form a class of selected lives, since they have an advantage of
nearly 3 per cent as compared with all males at the same ages, —
264
that is, from 24 to 40, — and of over 50 per cent as compared’ with
the total population, both sexes, at the same ages ; this latter great
disparity being no doubt largely due to the casualties among women
during the child-bearing period. As the wear and tear of practice
begins to tell, this advantage is soon lost; so that during the period
from 30 to 70 the death-rate of physicians is 8 per cent greater than
that of all males, and during the period from 40 to 70 it is more
than 11 per cent greater than that of both sexes.
An examination of the causes of death reveals the result of the
exposure, irregular hours, broken rest, and mental anxiety which
are the lot of the average practitioner.
In the grouped causes of death it is seen that consumption, dis-
eases of the respiratory organs (including 91 from pneumonia), and
Bright’s disease caused 268 deaths, or more than one-fourth of the
total. If to these be added a share of the deaths from diseases of
the heart, — the seguele of rheumatism, — a fair estimate may be
made of the effect of exposure to the vicissitudes of weather upon
the wear and tear of medical life. Asa result of mental strain and
anxiety, of insufficient, irregular, and interrupted sleep, and similar
causes, is the total of deaths from diseases of the brain and ner-
vous system, embracing 43 from various formsof paralysis. In the
group of zymotic diseases (enteric fever given separately) there were
5 deaths from diphtheria, 1 each from small-pox and yellow-fever,
and 8 from traumatic infection (septicaemia. Se) all contracted
from attendance upon patients.
Less creditable to the szorale of the profession are the 18 deaths
from over-doses of opiates and narcotics, the 7 admitted suicides,
and the deaths from alcoholism, direct and indirect, — 12 of the
former, and at least 8 of the latter. There is this to be said, how-
ever, in this connection : that the proportion of mortality from these
causes is steadily diminishing ; and my observation shows that this
diminution is largely the yeas It of an amelioration of the conditions,
especially of country practice, due to better roads and methods of
locomotion, increased comfort in living, and less physical strain
upon the practitioner. Ten years ago the resort to stimulants upon
exposure to the weather, and under the harsher conditions of prac-
tice which then obtained, was much more common than it is to-day.
And this is also true of the use of opiates and hypnotics. The
practitioner, familiar with their power to temporarily stimulate to
further endurance, or to produce sleep when nervous and exhausted,
had formerly greater temptation to resort to the use of these agents,
always ready to hand.
While there is a total of 12 deaths reported during the ten years
as due to alcoholism direct, there has been only one in the last four
years ; and of the 18 deaths from over-doses of opiates and hyp-
notics in the entire period there has been only one in the last three
years. In addition to the amelioration in the conditions of practice
as a cause of this result, it is only fair to take into consideration
also the improved moral status of the profession in this State.
Although the figures and deductions here submitted are believed
to be substantially accurate, — being, if any thing, understatements,
— they are offered only as a provisional contribution to the study of
the subject, which is by no means exhausted. The numbers under
observation, and the period covered, are greater than any thing
heretofore utilized for this purpose in this country, so far as I am
aware, and have cost much labor, which may be materially lightened
in the future by very little effort on the part of physicians in making
returns of death certificates, and by county clerks in forwarding
them to the office of the board. It is hoped that the interest which
this presentation of the subject may reasonably be expected to
arouse will lead to this result.
CARPET-BEATING IN PARIS.— The Conseil de Salubrité of
Paris has prescribed the following conditions under which the beat-
ing of carpets will be permitted in the city. The carpets must be
brushed and beaten in entirely shut-up rooms, and the dust depos-
ited on the floor will be washed with water containing some disin-
fectant of potent action. Strips of wool, etc., must be burnt imme-
diately. This action has been taken because of the nuisance caused
by the beating of carpets in the open air in the built-up portions of
the city, and because of the danger which is believed to exist, due
to the fact that many of the carpets come from houses in which
contagious diseases have prevailed, and that in the process of beat-
ing and shaking the germs are dislodged.
SCHIING@E:
[Vot. XI. No. 278
BOOK-REVIEWS.
Déscovery of the Origin of the Name of America.
DE St. Bris. New York, Amer. News Co. 8°.
IT seems almost as if the sober historian owed his thanks to a
class of half-learned wanderers on the outskirts of historical studies,
for keeping up with the unthinking a certain factitious interest in
early American history, and so to produce readers, who in the end
learn to distinguish the limits of historical evidence. One of these
happy enthusiasts fabricates as a designation for the precipices of
the Hudson the words L’anormée berge, and of course finds Norum-
bega along the Palisades. Another finds a rock in a river, —it is
so unusual to find rocks in rivers, —and places Leif’s-booths in Old
Cambridge, Mass. Another finds ‘ Amerrique,’ or something else,
attached to a mountain, or presumably attached, and thinks Ves-
pucius is a humbug. Another finds a Peruvian tribe called by
something that sounds like ‘America,’ and says that the New
World was named in that way, it being no matter that the name
« America’ was in use for the new continent years before Peru was
discovered.
The latest of these whimsical revellers finds, that, after all, Co-
lumbus received his reward in having the name of his continental
‘find’ evolved from ‘Amaraca,— the spot, as he says, where the
great navigator first struck the mainland. This last writer has
printed a thick pamphlet called ‘Discovery of the Origin of the
Name of America,—the Most Illustrious Aboriginal National
Name of the Continent, by Thomas de St. Bris, — and undertakes
gravely the more difficult task of convincing others, after he has
accomplished the far easier one of convincing himself.
The new interest in the study of American history must be ac-
cepted, we suppose, with all its train of erratic followers. New inter-
ests are always handicapped with such impediments. Itis useless to
follow Mr. St. Bris in all his gyrations. When he refers to the au-
thority of Wald-see-Miiller, and his story of thesapplication of the
name of ‘ America’ as history accepts it, there is something delicious
in his saying ‘‘ that ideas of that age were often printed without the
slightest reason.” We wonder if Mr. St. Bris ever heard that the
Spanish Government never recognized during the age of discovery
any name for the New World but the ‘Indies,’ when he tells us
that ‘Charles V., one of the most famous monarchs of the world,
gave his western hemisphere one of the most illustrious names of
antiquity!” Mr. St. Bris has got yet to learn the alphabet of his-
torical research.
Report of the Datry Commissioner of the State of New Jersey,
1887. Trenton, State. 8°.
WE have had occasion in the past to congratulate the people of
New Jersey on the fact, which we think is generally conceded among
sanitarians, that the reports published by the board of health of that
State occupy the very first rank in the reports of State boards
of health; and that the work done by that board in improving the
sanitary condition of the State, not alone through the instrumentality
of beneficent laws, but also largely through the educational influ-
ences set at work by the State board, is of the highest order, and
cannot but be of immense value to the State, both in improving the
health of its people and the value of its property. To Dr. E. M.
Hunt, the secretary of the board, more than to any other one man,
is this due. Equally worthy of commendation is the work of Dr.
William K. Newton, the dairy commissioner of the State. The re-
port of this officer, which is before us, is the second which has been
published. It deals with the subject of oleomargarine, the sale of
By THOMAS
50 cents.
which is prohibited in the State, unless the seller informs the pur-
chaser what the article is, and presents him a printed notice bear-
ing the name of the article, with milk, and with foods and drugs. ”
Penalties for the violation of the law to the amount of $3,100 have
been received during the past year. In the prosecution of those
who furnish impure or adulterated milk, $3,900 have been collected
in fines. The report contains a number of interesting special re-
ports, among which are the following: ‘ Testing for Color in Oleo-
margarine;’ ‘Lard, its Aulteration and Detection;’ ‘ Condensed
Milk ;’ ‘The Composition and Methods of Analysis of Condensed
Milk,’ by Prof. H. B. Cornwall ; ‘Honey and its Adulteration ; ’
«Analysis of Adulterated Honey,’ by Shippen Wallace; ‘ Vinegar
JUNE 1, 1888.]
and its Adulteration;’ ‘Canned Foods ;’ ‘Candies;’ ‘ Poisoning
from Smoked Sturgeon ;’ ‘ Baking-Powder;’ ‘ Bread;’ ‘ The Food
at the State Camp;’ ‘ Foods for Invalids and Infants,’ by Prof. A.
R. Leeds;’ ‘Estimation of Morphine in Opium,’ by Prof. H. B.
_ Cornwall; and ‘Notes on Drugs sold in New Jersey,’ etc., by Au-
gust Drescher.
American Fishes.
Book Co. 8°.
By G. BROWN GOODE. New York, Standard
THIS is a book which every devotee of the rod will be glad to
possess. Mr. Goode modestly says in the preface that he yielded
to his publisher’s request for a ‘book about fish and fishing in
America,’ feeling that he knew more on this subject than on any
other: Since 1874 Mr. Goode has been more or less closely con-
nected with the United States Fish Commission, has been abroad
as the representative of the United States to the foreign fishery ex-
hibitions, and has in several books and innumerable articles pub-
lished the results of his observations and investigations. For a
time Mr. Goode acted as fish commissioner after the death of Pro-
fessor Baird, resigning the position only that he might devote all
his energies to the National Museum.
In the present volume no attempt is made to cover all of the
1,750 species known to exist on this continent: the object has
been rather to give information about every North American fish
likely to be of interest to the general reader either on account of
its food-value or its gameness. All of this information is couched
in such language as to be perfectly intelligible to those not conver-
sant with the mysteries of scientific terminology; and, as the au-
thor states, the book is intended for “the angler, the lover of na-
ture, and the general reader.’ A figure is given of nearly every
species, and these figures are most admirable, resembling fre-
quently the carefully prepared drawings of the Fish Commission.
Mr. Goode gives vent to one lamentation in which he will meet
the sympathy of those who have had the products of their pens
published as public documents. It is probable that most of those
who have ever had the curiosity sufficient to induce them to take
down from the shelves of some country library one from the rows
of mourning-clad volumes of government reports have never gone
further than the ‘honor to transmit.’ One of the chief objects of
the author in writing this book was to see some of the results of
his twenty years’ study printed in substantial and dignified shape.
We had never thought of our black-clad friends as Jacking in
dignity, and they are certainly substantial enough for such use as
they get; still the public is to be congratulated on having so well
made a book on a subject so ably and successfully handled. It is
a book on fish and their habits, and there is no attempt to tell of
rods and flies.
NOTES AND NEWS.
THE June number of The Century opens with the second of
Mr. Kennan’s illustrated articles, this one being on ‘ Plains and
Prisons of Western Siberia... The Lincoln history in this number
contains chapters on ‘The Advance,’ ‘ Bull Run,’ ‘ Frémont,’ and
‘Military Emancipation.’ The iast of the present series of illus-
trated Western articles by Mr. Roosevelt is entitled ‘ The Ranch-
man’s Rifle on Crag and Prairie.’ Another illustrated article is
written by Mr. Theodore De Vinne, printer of Ze Century, and is
entitled ‘A Printer’s Paradise: The Plantin-Moretus Museum at
Antwerp.’ Mr. Burroughs’s appreciative article on ‘Matthew Ar-
nold’s Criticism,’ it seems, had been sent to the printer for the June
Century before Mr. Arnold’s death. In the same number Mrs.
van Rensselaer points out some of the errors into which Mr. Ar-
nold fell in discussing American art. Professor Atwater’s food-
article this month discusses the question ‘What We Should Eat.’
The fiction of the number includes some chapters of Dr. Eggles-
ton’s novel, ‘The Graysons. The concluding portion of Henry
James’s ‘ The Liar’ is given ; with two short stories, ‘Selina’s Sin-
gular Marriage,’ by Grace Denio Litchfield, and a love-story, ‘ By
Telephone,’ by Brander Matthews. A biographical paper is devoted
by Mrs. Herrick to Col. Richard Malcolm Johnston, the Southern
story-writer. A portrait of Colonel Johnston accompanies the ar-
ticle. In this number there is another article by Mr. Cheney on
SCIENCE:
265
bird-songs; there is also a group of poems. The June Sf,
Nicholas has as a leading article, ‘A Great Show,’ by Prof. Alfred
Church, describing the Circus Maximus at Rome. Thomas Nel-
son Page continues the serial, ‘ Two Little Confederates,’ and Celia
Thaxter contributes a children’s story, ‘ Cat’s-Cradle.’ ‘Caterina
and her Fate,’ by E. Cavazza, is an old Sicilian legend put into
verse, and illustrated by R. B. Birch. Among the lighter features
are contributions by Amélie Rives, Emilie Poulsson, Margaret
Johnson, Estelle Thomson, Julia P. Ballard, Alfred Brennan, and C.
W. Miller. Despite the fire, the June issue of Zhe Amerdcan
Magazine isa good number. Among the notable features is a
paper on ‘Our Defences from an Army Standpoint,’ by Gen. O. O.
Howard ; ‘The Art of Entertaining,’ by Mrs. Gen. John A. Logan ;
‘Dickens on the American Stage,’ by George Edgar Montgomery ;.
and ‘ Barbados: The Elbow Island,’ by Dr. William F. Hutchin-
son. In spite of reports to the contrary, Te Cosmopolitan
magazine will continue to be published. The June number, shortly
to be issued, promises to be the best it has ever sent forth. The
leading article, upon ‘The Romance of Roses,’ is an account, by
Sophie B. Herrick, of the stories clustering about these universal)
favorites. It is illustrated by many engravings and by four colored,
pages.
— Under the head of ‘ Philosophical Papers, of the University of
Michigan,’ Andrews & Company, Ann Arbor, are now publishing a
second series. These papers were prepared by specialists in the.
university, under the direction of the philosophical department, and,.
with but one exception, were read before the Philosophical Society,
being selected and edited by Prof. George S. Morris. The series.
consists of four papers, —‘ The Ethics of Democracy,’ by Prof.
John Dewey; ‘Speculative Consequences of Evolution,’ by Prof.
Alexander Winchell; ‘Lessing on the Boundaries of Poetry and
Painting,’ by Prof. E. L. Walter; ‘The Ethics of Bishop Butler and Im--
manuel Kant’ (a thesis for the degree of Ph.D.), by Webster Cook.
Cassell’s ‘ Pocket Guide to Europe,’ the 1888 edition of which is;
just out, was planned by E. C. Stedman, to meet the demand for a
general European guide-book, small enough to be carried easily in
a gentleman’s or lady’s pocket, and yet more complete than any
other single-volume guide. It was compiled by Edward King of Paris,
who personally went over most of the routes described. It was
revised by M. F. Sweetser of Boston, and is re-edited and kept up
to date by Mr. Stedman, with the aid of experts in the London
office of Messrs. Cassell & Company.
—Senator Edmunds has proposed an amendment to the diplo-
matic and consular appropriation bill, authorizing the government:
to expend twenty-five thousand dollars for salaries and expenses.
of a scientific commission of three persons —to be composed of
one officer of the army or navy, a geologist and mineralogist, and’
naturalist — to visit and report upon the resources of the upper-
Kongo basin, its products, its minerals, its vegetable wealth, the
openings for American trade, and such other information as shall,
be thought of interest to the United States. Another amendment
which he has proposed to the same bill provides an appropriation
of ten thousand dollars for salary and expenses of an agent and
consul-general at Borna, in Kongo. The President is authorized
to detail an army or navy officer for this service.
— The House committee has reported favorably the international
copyright bill, that has already been passed by the Senate, instead
of the one introduced by one of its own members. This shows a
determination to enact this measure into a law during the present
session, and a willingness to facilitate its passage.
— The House committee has given a good deal of attention to.
the proposed survey for the purpose of ascertaining whether the
arid lands of the United States are susceptible of being reclaimed
or not. Popular interest in this matter is aroused all over the
West. No more important subject has been brought to the atten-
tion of Congress during the present session.
— The delay of Congress in passing the annual appropriation
bills prevents the Bureau of Ethnology from making its plans for
the field-work of the present season. This bureau is not estab-
lished by law, but is kept alive from year to year by special appro-
priations for its work. While there is no doubt that it will be pro-
266
vided for as usual this year, it is legally impossible to assume that
it will in carrying on the work of the bureau.
— Dr. Asa Gray left Harvard College in trust, to aid in the sup-
port of the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, the copyrights
of all his books, upon the condition that proper provision be made
for the renewal and extension of these copyrights by new editions,
continuations, and supplements, such as may be needed in the study
of botany, and as may best enhance and prolong the pecuniary
value of the bequest.
LE DTERS) LO) DHE EDIMOR:
*." Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible.
in all cases required as proof of good faith.
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Fayette County Meteorite.
IN a notice published in this journal Feb. 3, we gave the name
of ‘La Grange’ to this meteorite, overlooking the fact that this
name was already applied to the Oldham County (Kentucky) iron.
In order to avoid confusion, we would suggest that this name be
dropped. and that instead, this meteorite be designated by the
name of the county in which it was found (Fayette County, Tex.) ;
and under this title will shortly appear (Amerzcan Fournal of Sce-
SCIBINGCE:
[ Vor. XE No 276
subsequent to the veins, and doubtless at the time of the fall. A
dark clouding for the most part surrounds these fissures, the
darkest parts being farthest from the fissure, and terminated, in
some cases, by a dark line similar to the veins. As all of the fis-
sures are not surrounded by this dark shading, and as some of the
clouded spots contain no fissures, it argues that the coloration can-
not be the effect of decomposition induced by the cracks, particu-
larly as there is no apparent effect of decomposition extending in
from the surface of the stone. The clouding is perhaps older than
the cracks, and formed lines of weakness which the cracks followed.
Further sections may throw more light on this point.
The general structural appearance of the polished section is that
of a fine, compact conglomerate of greenish-gray color. When
held so as to reflect the light properly, the grains of iron might, as
to number and distribution, be likened to the stars in the Milky
Way. Only a few grains attain the size of an eighth of an inch,
although two or three grains, composed of iron and troilite, are a
full quarter-inch in diameter. Nearly all of the larger grains con-
tain troilite, so that our efforts to develop the Widmanstadtian
figures were only partially successful.
In making a mould of the stone before cutting it, the surface
was thoroughly oiled, which removed a good deal of the iron-rust,
showing much more of the original black crust remaining than
could be seen at first. WARD & HOWELL.
Rochester, N.Y., May 24.
sence for June) papers by Mr. J. E. Whitfield of the United States Geo-
logical Survey, and Mr. G. P. Merrill of the United States National
Museum; the former having worked it up very thoroughly from
ithe chemical side, and the latter microscopically.
They find it to ‘‘consist essentially of enstatite and olivine, with
-a good deal of nickel, iron, and some pyrrhotite.” The iron con-
tains over fifteen per cent of nickel, and about two and a half per
cent of cobalt.
Since the preparation of these papers, we have cut three slices,
an inch and a quarter thick, from the centre of the stone, which
enables us to add some interesting facts. The black veins that
were observed at several points on the surface are found to extend
entirely through the mass, and to be arranged mainly in two sets,
in each of which the veins are approximately parallel, the two sets
crossing each other at an angle of about 45°. This systematic
arrangement of the veins, which may be only accidental, is shown
in the accompanying cut, which represents a face of one of the
slices.
As the planes of the veins are cut nearly at right angles by the
sections, they show on each of them, in approximately the same
positions. This is particularly the case with the narrow vein
shown at the base of the section. Although only a mere line, it is
uniform throughout, and is seen in exactly the same position on all
of the sections: therefore we have already revealed the plane of
this vein, 15 by 4 inches, with no indications of ‘ petering out.’
The irregular thick vein also maintains a nearly uniform appear-
ance throughout the four inches of thickness.
The sections also reveal a number of fissures or cracks formed
An Unusual Auroral Bow.
FOR several years past the ‘northern lights’ at Buffalo have
been a rare meteor. Last evening an unusually interesting display
was witnessed. As twilight faded, a luminous bank appeared in
the north, which increased in brightness and altitude until nearly
midnight. This was accompanied by the usual phenomena of a
bright aurora; i.e., a yellowish-green color, long streamers ema-
nating from a bright, irregular arch resting on dark clouds, and
the eastward billowy motion of the streamers of light. The most
interesting part, however, was an arch which rested its extremities
on the eastern and western horizons, and passed at first a few de-
grees south of the zenith, but which drifted several degrees farther
south before final disappearance. This arch formed about 9
o'clock, remained sharply defined until 9.45, and at to.15 was still
faintly visible. Its width appeared to be about that of the rainbow,
and it was at first as symmetrical. Subsequently it became some-
what bent, and of irregular width. The bends, convex southward,
slowly passed along the bow westward. As it faded out, the ex-
tremities were displaced by streamers of light. Those in the east
were very distinct, and four or more at a time appeared in this col-
onnade.
A phenomenon not before witnessed by me was a steady and
rapid drifting or flowing of the luminous, cloud-like matter of the
arch from the east towards the west. This could be plainly seen
by the unaided eye for about forty degrees of the upper part of the
band, and any particular cloud would traverse this space in two
minutes. D. S. KELLICOTT,
Buffalo, N.Y., May er.
June 1, 1888. | SCIENCE. ili
Bishops Potter, Stevens, and Robertson ; Presidents Mark Hopkins, Hitchcock, and Barnard;
Profs. Parker, Draper, and Beard; and thousands of the world’s best brain workers, have used and
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ONE LANGUAGE FOR THE WHOLE WORLD.
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Its great superiority over ‘‘ Volapuk,” or any other
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Ex-President Andrew D. White, of Cornell University,
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Editorial : . 267 Electrical Welding 273
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Powys ATLAS 0 WORLD.
A Complete American and Foreign Atlas, with isomet!s%edex to maps. Folio
112. Maps and Plans.
Wm. M. Bradley & Bro., 1026 Arch St., Phila., Pa.
From Rev. James McCosh, D.D., LL.D., From Prof. Geo. H. Cook,
PRESIDENT OF PRINCETON COLLEGE. STATE GEOLOGIST.
It is very full and comprehensive, and is more minute in giving the | The best work of the kind that I know of. It is up to’the times in
names and localities of places in all countries than any atlas I have seen. its matter and its maps are admirably prepared. I heartily commend it.
It should be in all our libraries and in our large offices.
From William Libbey, Jr.,
PROF. PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY IN PRINCETON COLLEGE.
It gives me pleasure to add my testimony to the value of Bradley’s
Atlas, the first American work of the sort worthy of the name. I have
examined it closely and find it excellent in every way. The informa-
tion it contains is drawn from the latest and best authorities, making it From the late General Wm. B. Hazen,
easily the most reliable as it is the most recent work in its department: | Grits GHEE, OGG, WASHINERON, DC
in existence. It will take the lead among Geographical Atlases. r WHOSE Pane Buehoee WIRE
Your Atlas is just what is needed at home and abroad.
SURDION de Mis SIE PIB) From Gen. Fitz John Porter.
EDITOR OF CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE. i
This Atlas approaches and may be said to attain, up to the present The volume is very valuable. I have not seen a better set of maps.
date, the idgal of an atlas. We have perused it with reference to the :
recent exploring expeditions sent to the Polar Seas, Mexico, and Rus- From Ellis A. Apgar.
From John H. Vincent, D.D.
I have examined and subscribed for the mammoth volume of maps
published by Wm. M Bradley & Bro. It is a treasure house of infor-
mation, Geographical, Historical, and Statistical. I heartily commend
it to persons ‘‘ who want the best.”
sia ; and the maps of Switzerland, Norway and Sweden, and the Dark | LATE STATE SUPT. OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION.
Continent, and have placed it in the editorial library as something I have examined Bradley’s Atlas of the World, and it affords me
greatly to be desired and likely to be frequently consulted. pleasure to say that it is the best published in this country.
And a large list of prominent educators, including Jas. H. Mason Knox, D.D., President of Lafayette College ; Prof. B.
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ii
First Steps in Scientific Knowledge
By PAUL BERT, Ex-Minister of Education in France,
and Professor at La Faculte des Sciences des Paris.
Adapted and arranged for American Schools by W. H.
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FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1888.
SCIENCE CAN FAIRLY CLAIM the honor of having placed the
‘discussion concerning the New York public-school system on the
proper basis. The task of educating public sentiment has now
‘been undertaken by one of the most influential journals of the
metropolis, —the Sz, and in the forefront of its discussion,
‘serving almost as the text for what follows, stands our editorial
‘comment of two weeks ago. Educators in all parts of the country
are following the discussion in this city with intense interest, and
while it is not in our province to enter too extensively into detail,
yet we purpose to keep our readers apprised of the progress of the
battle; for it is a battle, in every sense of the word, —it is a bat-
‘tle between right and wrong, between educational progress and
enlightenment and educational incompetence. The result will be
either to free the schools and their hundreds of thousands of pupils
from the deadening influence and control of a political ring, or it
-will fasten that influence and control on them more surely than
ever. If the thinking citizens of the metropolis can be brought to
appreciate the real nature of the alternative, the result cannot be
fora moment doubtful. From all parts of the country, protests
should be sent to the authorities in New York in order that they
may be made to see that the country’s intelligence and the country’s
conscience are fully aroused in this matter.
IN THE CURRENT ISSUE of the Forum, Ex-President Andrew D.
White of Cornell has a suggestive article on ‘ The Next American
University.’ It is nothing less than the skeleton of a plan for a
national examining university, with sufficient funds to bestow fel-
‘lowships, scholarships, and travelling bachelorships. Its strength
‘lies in its co-operation with existing institutions of collegiate grade.
Its weakness, as a plan, is the immense amount of money required
‘to put it in operation. It would furthermore be difficult to select a
suitable chancellor, or, at all events, a succession of suitable chan_
-cellors, for such an institution, without incurring the hostility or
jealousy of some sectarian body or some educational faction. The
-ordinary college has an historic policy of its own, and the president
is to execute and develop it. In such an institution as Mr. White
has in mind, the chancellor would be university, policy, and every
thing else, so long as he held office. But if the money is forth-
coming, let the plan be tried, and let Mr. White be the first chan_
cellor.
THE WASHINGTON SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES have suspended their
meetings for the season after seven months of remarkably success-
ful work. Every session has been well attended, and there have
been more papers than there has been time to listen to. Many of
these have reported important progress in original investigation,
and many others have described work which, although not pushing
out into new fields, has perfected and filled up gaps in the work in old
ones. The three leading societies — the Philosophical, Biological,
and Anthropological — have, by their co-operation, maintained the
annual course of Saturday afternoon free scientific lectures. These
have all been of a high order, and have been listened to by intelligent
audiences that have filled to its utmost capacity the auditorium of
the National Museum. Sczence has devoted more attention, and given
up more of its space, than usual, during the past few months, to pa-
pers presented at the meetings of these Washington scientific socie-
‘ties; and some of our readers may think that we have given them un-
due prominence, epecially as we have not published the proceedings of
scientific societies in other cities. If there are any such, we would
remind them that the scientific societies of Washington are unique ;
they are composed almost entirely of gentlemen employed in the
scientific bureaus of the government, many of them engaged in
making original researches that could not be carried on by private
enterprise because of their great cost. A large proportion of the
papers read before the Washington societies are actual reports of
progress or of the results of these investigations, and thus antici-
pate the official reports by months, and often by years.
ONE OF THE MOST INTERESTING features of the very creditable
exhibition of the industrial work of the past year in the public
schools of Washington, given last week, was what were termed
the ‘spontaneous’ products of some of the pupils; that is, work
done outside of the schools. Some of this was suggested by the
teachers, and some was not, but in each case it was voluntarily per-
formed by the pupil. One boy, ten years old, exhibited the head of
an Indian, a dog, and a horse, modelled in clay, which showed
much latent artistic taste and skill. Another boy, twelve years old,
made a vase of clay adorned with blooming roses which he had
colored. A third boy, ten years old, had modelled a cluster of
roses. One of the boys in a higher grade had made an electric
bell, a wire from which stretched around the hall, and was operated
by means of a button in a distant part of the room. Two other
boys, still in the grammar-school, had made two telephones, which
were placed at opposite ends of the hall, and which worked per-
fectly. This ‘spontaneous’ work, the teachers say, is indirectly the
result of the manual training recently introduced into the public
schools.
VERY GREAT IMPROVEMENTS have been made in the National
Museum at Washington during the last six months. Professor
Goode conceives that the object of that institution should be to
teach facts in regard to the resources, arts, and industries of the
United States, and to a more limited extent of the world, instead of
to make exhibitions to please the eye or excite the wonder of the
visitor. There are many things in the National Museum that never
ought to have been placed there. For instance: there is a cat
upon a fence, with the query why she doesn’t goover. The reason
is shown in the companion object, which shows a large turtle on
the tail of the cat. Probably the worst object in the museum is a
deer covered with nails. It was probably once owned by some
tradesman who dealt in nails, and who covered it with samples of
his wares, and placed it outside his door to attract customers.
How it came in the National Museum we do not know; but we do
know that it ought not to remain there, and shall be surprised if
Professor Goode does not soon banish it to the lumber-heap.
THE WEATHER-PREDICTIONS.
THE meteorological work of the Signal Office began in 1870,
when an appropriation of $15,000 was made for it. When the
weather-predictions were first published, they were looked upon
with curiosity and wonder by the people, who were surprised rather
that they were verified at all than that they sometimes failed.
After eighteen years the weather-predictions have become a part
of the every-day necessities of the people of this country. They
consult them almost hourly, and by them shape their plans affect-
ing their health, their pleasure, and their business. Instead of
268
$15,000 a year, the meteorological work of the Signal Office now
costs $900,000, and has cost as much as $1,000,000,
In eighteen years, and with such liberal expenditures of money,
this service ought to have increased, not only in the extent of its
operations, as it has done enormously, but in the character of its
work. With so much broader field of operations, the advance-
ment that has been made in meteorological science, and the ex-
perience gained in eighteen years, the weather-predictions now
ought to be made with much more confidence than formerly, and a
larger percentage of them ought to be verified. But such improve-
ment has not been made; at least, not to the extent that it ought
to have been. The public have found this out, and, being more
critical than formerly, as they have a right to be, complain when
they suffer in health, comfort, or pocket through a failure of the
predictions to be verified. Why is it, that, while the percentage
of successful indications in 1883 was 89.1, it was in 1887 only 73.9,
or, allowing for the fact that predictions are now made thirty-two
hours in advance, instead of twenty-four as formerly, only 80.9 ?
Some, but not all, of the reasons are given in the last annual re-
port of the chief signal officer.
by gentlemen who have had sufficient experience. General Greely
says, ‘‘ Within the past three or four years the relief of the old
officers detaiied from the line of the army has been forced upon the
chief signal officer by legislative action. Inconsequence, it followed
that the young officers of the signal corps, who have only within
the past year or two received any extended instruction in meteor-
ology, have been assigned to this important duty [of preparing the
indications]. Within the past year three officers have necessarily
been assigned to indications work who never before have per-
formed duty of this character. It consequently follows, that,
through restrictive legislation, the chief signal officer finds himself
compelled to permit the new officers to serve their apprenticeship
in predicting, at the expense of the whole country. It has occurred,
as might be expected, that the novices in the work at times made
errors that subjected the service to criticism, which, well merited
in such cases, cannot be considered valid criticism of the methods
followed by the service. It follows, too, that not every officer who
satisfactorily performs practice indications work is well qualified
for actual work. Not only is the predicting-officer weighed down
with a strong sense of responsibility in the performance of this dif-
ficult and vastly important work, but he is also required to decide
with as great degree of accuracy instantly, as though he had ample
time at his disposal. The officer, as a rule, predicts for forty dif-
ferent districts, for which three elements — temperature, weather,
and wind — must be determined. As the time for these predic-
tions is strictly limited, it necessarily follows that each State or
district receives less than sixty seconds’ consideration at the hands
of the indications officer, and each element is predicted with not
over twenty seconds’ consideration. Officers who have done credit-
able practice-work have not infrequently failed when called upon
to decide instantly and officially future weather-conditions for the
whole country.”
And again: ‘ The detailed records of this office show how
necessary is experience for success in predicting; and it has al-
ways followed, that, atter a considerable lapse of time in which no
work has been done, an indications officer recommences work less
successfully and with a very reduced percentage. How essential
practice is to success is shown by the comparison of the work years
since, when officers continued steadily on this work, with the re-
sults of late years, when changes have been frequent and the course
of work necessarily broken.”
Lack of proper organization of the signal corps is another cause
of its failure to meet public expectation, As General Greely says,
“Officers and men of the high order of ability and intelligence re-
quired by this duty cannot be expected to devote the best years of
their life to a service which offers no reward in way of increased
rank or pay even for the most valuable work. Poor pay and no
possible advance in rank must produce unsatisfactory results. .. .
Only two of the original detail remain with the corps, many hav-
ing voluntarily quitted duty which promised no advancement, and
some have gained promotion and reputation in other corps. .. . It
is only by long study and great experience that indications officers,
who perform the vital work of this service, can expect to be at all
SCIPINGE®
The indications are not now made ~
[Vor. XI.- No. 279
efficient in their important duties.” Important as this branch of
the service is, touching as it does so many vital interests of the
people, Congress has always neglected to give it proper attention.
In more than eighteen years no separate and distinct law affecting
the Signal Service has been enacted. The only legislation regard-
ing the corps has been in the shape of ‘riders’ upon appropriation
bills, which, as a rule, have not had proper consideration. The
law of 1866, re-organizing the army, directed the detail of six officers.
and one hundred men from the engineer corps. No engineer
officer has ever been detailed to the signal corps. The same law
provided that no officer or man should be detailed without exami-
nation and approval by a military board. This mandate has also-
been ignored. Under a perversion of a law of 1878, civilians have
been enlisted as privates, promoted the same day to be sergeants,
commissioned the next day to be second-lieutenants. and sent into
the signal corps without examination of any kind, and without
having served a day in the corps, to take the places of experienced
men who have thus been crowded out and sent back to their regi-
ments.
Although the Signal Service is one dealing entirely with physics,
until General Greely, then a subaltern, urged the importance of it,
no question bearing on the natural sciences was ever put to any
sergeant examined for promotion. The result is that some of the
second-lieutenants of the signal corps are officers whose mental
qualifications and natural ambitions will insure their remaining in
the service even under a rigid examination; while there are two
other classes, one of which consists of young men, whose natural
aptitudes tend rather in the direction of the line of the army than
with a strictly scientific corps. The mental abilities, general edu-
cation, or moral standing of the third class is such that it cannot
be reasonably expected that they would ever serve with marked”
credit either in the line of the army or in the signal corps. General
Greely has said officially that the records of the office show that
the senior officer in the signal corps, next to the chief signal officer,
has never been able to attain such a knowledge of the methods.
and work of the Signal Service as has always been exacted from
every sergeant in the corps; this despite the fact that the officer in
question received the most careful instruction, covering a period of
nearly two years, and was thrice examined on questions which were
substantially the same.
Nor has the whole story yet been told. The present secretary
of war has never shown any interest in the Signal Office, and has
seconded none of the efforts of the chief signal officer to improve
the service. A bill, prepared by General Greely, to re-organize the
corps and correct the abuses (for they are nothing less) described
above, was not approved by Secretary Endicott, who seems only
anxious to get rid of the bureau, and not to care how greatly de-
moralized it may be. The Senate in the last Congress passed a
bill to transfer the Signal Office to a civil department ; but it failed
in the House, which already this session has incorporated in the
bill creating a Department of Agriculture, which it has passed, a
provision transferring this bureau to that branch of the government.
In both cases it is provided that the officers now on duty in the
Signal Office, with all their good qualities and defects, shall go with
the service without prejudice to their commissions : in other words,
although it is proposed to make the bureau a civil one, yet the
officers are still given an immovable tenure of office, without dis-
crimination being made between the worthy and the incompetent,
—a perpetuation for an indefinite time of the present extravagant,
inefficient, and demoralized organization of the office. Against
this, General Greely protests, and asks Congress to re-organize the
service whether the transfer is made or not, cut down the expense
of it $100,000 or $125,000 a year, and give him a chance to make
it perform its work as it should do, and as Congress has a right to
expect it to, But his bill and communication receive no attention
from the committee of either House. Mr. Hatch, chairman of the
House committee that reported the bill which has passed that
body this session, has never been to the Signal Office to learn any
thing about the service, or communicated with the chief signal
officer as to the needs of the service. He simply attached the pro-
vision making the transfer to the Agricultural Department bill
without knowing what its effect would be. The first result of the
enactment of the bill into a law will be the necessity of appropriat-
June 8, 1888.]
ting $65,000 additional a year to man the military telegraphs, which
will then be left without an operator, instead of saving $125,000.
Is it any wonder that the weather-predictions are not always
verified ? General Greely, confident that the Signal Office will soon
‘be transferred to a civil department, in loyalty to the government,
‘began, at the opening of the present fiscal year, some preparation
for it, especially by training civilians in weather-predictions, de-
tailing one on each alternate month. Professor Abbe was per-
forming this duty in March; and although years ago, when he had
long-continued practice, he was remarkably successful, he failed to
foretell the great blizzard, of which something certainly ought to
have been known in advance. Similar conspicuous failures this
~year may be explained in the same way.
A word ought to be said about the cold-wave predictions. These
-are an extension of the service within the past few years, and, as a
knowledge in advance of sudden great changes of temperature is of
‘great importance on account of its bearing on the health of the
people and the safety of many kinds of property, these reports, a
very large percentage of which have been verified, have become
‘very popular.
THE POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE!
Every middle-aged inhabitant of the British Islands must recall
more than one occasion when the mind of our country has been
‘strongly stirred on the question of national defence. The adverse
-evidence of an expert, a rousing article in a newspaper, has often
-awakened general anxiety of more or less continuance, and been
followed by more or less adequate results. But it is far more diffi-
cult to awaken any widespread concern on behalf of those great
-abiding national interests which it is our charge and heritage to
defend. And yet there are signs of no uncertainty which must to
e-all thoughtful and instructed minds, from many directions, suggest
the question whether that industrial leadership which has hitherto
made our small and crowded country the world’s workshop, and
-almost the world’s mart, is not slipping from us. This is a ques-
‘tion not of more or less wealth or luxury, but of very livelihood to
the masses of the people under the special conditions of our na-
tional existence. If work ceases to come to a workshop, there is
nothing for it but prompt dispersal of the workmen. All authori-
ties seem agreed that the population of five or six millions inhabit-
ing England and Wales in the time of Queen Elizabeth represents
pretty nearly what their areas can sustain as agricultural, self-sup-
porting countries. But the population of England and Wales alone
was shown by the census of 1881 to have reached nearly twenty-
six millions ; so that seven years ago there was in the southern half
-of Great Britain an excess of twenty millions above what the coun-
try could reasonably support, except as a community of artificers
-and traders, and general carriers, by import and export, of the
world’s merchandise. It needs only a glance into past history to
‘see that this, while an enviable position for a nation while pros-
perity lasts, is practical extinction when the channels of commerce
are turned, or lost advantages have transferred production to new
centres. Macaulay’s fancy picture of the New-Zealander sketching
the ruins of St. Paul’s from the broken arches of London Bridge
seems of very little concern to the present citizen, whose ears are
deafened with the ceaseless roar and traffic of the streets. And
yet precisely that doom of silence and decay has befallen many a
proud mother-city of which now “even the ruins have perished.”
It would far exceed present limits to show in detail how many arti-
‘cles of our own immemorial production we ourselves now largely
import, because the foreign workman produces them better, or
‘produces them at less cost. The evidence will be fresh in the rec-
ollection of the readers of this journal. Neither can they fail to re-
-call with what persistence we have pointed outthe remedy. There
is but one real remedy, — the better training of the workman, and
—if we may be allowed to say it—of his employer too. Every
‘one who, without prejudice, has opportunity to watch a fair speci-
men of the British workman at his work must admit that the raw
material is as good as ever it was; that, in the quantity and quality
of the work he can turn out ina given time, few of any nationality
can-equal, and none surpass him. But in the training he receives,
and in the opportunities of his receiving it, there is much left to be
1 From Nature of May 24, 1888.
SCIMEINCIS,
269
desired. And meantime there is not only the grave fear, but in
many branches of industry the accomplished fact, that other na-
tions may and do outstrip us in the race.
Perhaps there is some belated merit in seeing that now; but all
honor to those who, with heart and means to labor towards the
better training of our artisans, devoted themselves to the endeavor
when the need for it was less comparatively obvious. Honor es-
pecially to one man, Mr. Quintin Hogg, who, close upon a quarter
of a century ago, at an age when most young men are concentrat-
ing their best energies on cricket, or foot-ball, or lawn-tennis (all
good things in their way), made it his life’s task to raise the skilled
workman of London, and furnish him more fully for his labor, for
his own sake and for ours. Probably most of our readers know
how that small enterprise has become a great one indeed, with the
old Polytechnic for its present home and centre, and with a fuller
variety of classes and branches, and with a greater comprehensive-
ness of scheme, than we can now attempt to describe. But all has
hitherto rested on the shoulders, and been sustained by the purse,
of Mr. Hogg himself, who, during the past six years, has spent,
speaking broadly, some £100,000 in establishing and sustaining
these admirable schools. But the time has now come when so
great a burden, for the work’s sake as well as for his own, should no
longer depend upon the means and life of a single man; and there
is now an opportunity of securing for the institute something like
an adequate endowment. The charity commissioners have offered
to endow it with £2,500 per annum on condition that the public
find £35,000 as a supplementary fund. £18,000 have already been
promised by the personal friends of the founder ; but £17,000 still
remain to be raised, — a large sum, no doubt, but a small one com-
pared to our still unrivalled resources, and the national value of the
institute, not only for its own immediate results, but as a model for
similar efforts in all the great centres of our industry. Those who
believe in science — that is, in faithfully accurate and exact knowl-
edge —as the only sure basis for any national prosperity that is to
bear the stress of the fierce competition of our times, are earnestly
invited to make themselves acquainted with the work of the insti-
tute, and to contribute to its funds. Eighty-one thousand mem-
bers and students have joined since it was moved to the Polytech-
nic, 309 Regent Street, in 1882. All donations or subscriptions
will be thankfully received there, or by Mr. Quintin Hogg, 3 Cav-
endish Square, W.
SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON.
Tricks of Indian Jugglery. — The May Fogs on the Atlantic.
Indian Jugglery.
THE feature of the evening at one of the late meetings of the
Anthropological Society was a paper by Col. Garrick Mallory on
‘Algonkin Glyphs on Bark and Stone.’ The paper also dealt
briefly with some related subjects, and will form a part of the an-
nual report of the Bureau of Ethnology. The following is a brief
chapter on ‘ Indian Jugglery,’ extracted from this paper : —
“Paul Beaulieu, an Ojibwa of mixed blood, present interpreter
at White Earth Agency, gave me his experience with a Jossakeed,
at Leech Lake, about the year 1858. The reports of wonderful
performances reached the agency, and, as Beaulieu had no faith in
the jugglers, he offered to wager one hundred dollars, a large sum,
then and there, against goods of equal value, that the juggler
could not perform satisfactorily one of the tricks of his repertoire
to be selected by him (Beaulieu) in the presence of himself and a
committee consisting of his friends.
“ The wager was accepted, with the result to be described.
« A medicine lodge was made. Four strong poles were planted
deep in the ground, rising to an elevation of at least ten or twelve
feet; one of them having the branches remaining and rising a little
beyond its fellows, this being the indication of a Jossakeed as dis-
tinguished from a Medé lodge. The interior diameter was less
than four feet. The frame, which was inclined to the centre, was
then filled in with intertwined twigs, and covered with blankets
and birch-bark from the ground to the top, leaving an orifice of
about a foot in diameter open for the ingress and egress of spirits
and of the objects to be mentioned, but not large enough for the
passage of a man’s body.
270
“ At one side of the bottom wrapping a flap was left for the en-
trance of the Jossakeed or Shaman.
“ A committee of twelve was selected to see that no communi-
cation was possible between the Jossakeed and confederates. These
twelve men were reliable people, one of them being the Episcopal
clergyman of the reservation. The spectators were several hun-
dreds in number, but stood off, not being allowed to approach.
“The Jossakeed then removed his clothing, until nothing re-
mained upon his person but the breech-cloth. Beaulieu then took a
rope (of his own selection for the purpose), and first tied and knot-
ted one end about the ankles; the knees were then securely tied
together; next the wrists; after which the arms were passed over
the knees, and a billet of wood passed under the knees, thus se-
curing and keeping the arms down motionless. The rope was
then passed around the neck again and again, each time tied and
knotted, so as to bring the face down upon the knees.
“A flat river-stone of black color— which was the Jossakeed
Manedo or amulet — was left lying upon his thighs. The Jossa-
keed was then carried to the lodge, placed inside upon a mat on
the ground, and the flap covering restored so as completely to hide
him from view.
“Immediately loud thumping noises were heard, and the frame-
work began to sway from side to side with great violence; where-
upon the clergyman remarked that this was the work of the Evil
One, and it was no place for him: so he left, and did not see the
end. After a few minutes of violent movements and swaying of
the lodge, accompanied by loud inarticulate noises, the motions
gradually ceased, when the voice of the juggler was heard telling
Beaulieu to go to the house of a friend near by, and get the rope.
Now, Beaulieu, suspecting some joke was to be played upon him,
directed the committee to be very careful not to permit any one to
approach while he went for the rope, which he found at the place
indicated, still tied exactly as he had placed it about the neck and
extremities of the Jossakeed. He immediately returned, laid it
down before the spectators, and requested of the Jossakeed to be
allowed to look at him, which was granted, but with the under-
standing that Beaulieu was not to touch him.
“When the covering was pulled aside, the Jossakeed sat within
the lodge, contentedly smoking his pipe, with no other object in
sight than the black stone Manedo.
“ Beaulieu paid his wager of one hundred dollars. An exhibition
of similar pretended powers, also for a wager, was announced a
short time later at Yellow-Medicine, Minn., to be given in the pres-
ence of a number of army people; but at the threat of the grand
medicine-man of Leech Lake bands, who probably objected to in-
terference with his lucrative monopoly, the event did not take
place, and bets were declared off.
“At Odanah, on the Bad River Reservation, and at Bayfield,
both in Wisconsin, I obtained some variants of the above perform-
ance as seen at different times and places and by several witnesses.
For instance: the Shaman at one time was tied up much as before
mentioned, but with all of his clothes on; a fish-net, however, be-
ing tied above his clothes, enveloping the whole person ; and horse-
bells were attached to his body, so as to indicate any motion.
When examined afterwards, the clothing had been entirely stripped
from his person, the nets and ropes and bells placed in a separate
pile in the lodge, and the clothing itself was found by direction un-
der a designated tree a mile off; the Indians of the committee, one
of whom was my informant, running from the lodge at their
highest speed to the tree, and there finding the clothing, and
stating the impossibility of its being transported by any human
agency in advance of their arrival. In another case, occurring at
night, two lodges were built about twenty feet apart. About a
hundred Indians surrounded the space occupied by the two lodges
with lighted torches giving the brightness of day, and a line of
bonfires was built and kept in flame over the space intervening be-
tween the two lodges. The levitation in this case was by the
bound Shaman in one lodge being found unbound in the other.
“Tt should be noted that these stories relate to a time some forty
or fifty years ago, before the tricks similar to those of the Daven-
port brothers had become known in the civilized portions of the
United States. It is a still more important fact that the French
missionaries in Canada, and the early settlers of New England, de-
~ SCIENCE:
[Vor. XI. No. 279
scribe substantially the same performances when they met the In-
dians, all of whom belonged to the Algonkin stock. So remarkable
and frequent were these performances of jugglery, that the French,
in 1613, called the whole body of Indians on the Ottawa River,
whom they met at a very early period, ‘the sorcerers.’ They were
the tribes afterwards called Nipissing, and were the typical Algon-
kins. No suspicion of jugglery in the sense of deception appears
to have been entertained by any of the earliest French and English
writers. The severe Puritan and the ardent Catholic both consid-
ered that the exhibitions were real, and the work of the Devil. It
is also worth mentioning that one of the derivations of the name
‘Mic-mac’ is connected with the word meaning ‘sorcerer;’ so
that the known practices of this character having an important ef-
fect upon the life of the people extended from the Great Lakes to-
the extreme east of the continent. It was obvious to me, in cross-
examining the various old men, that the performances of jugglery
were in each case an exhibition of the pretended miraculous power
of an individual, whereby he obtained a reputation above his rivals,
and derived subsistence and authority, by the selling of charms.
and superhuman information. The charms or fetiches, which still
are sold by a few who are yet believed in, are of three kinds, — to
bring death or disease on an enemy, to lure an enemy into an am-
bush, and to create sexual love.”
The Unusual Prevalence of Fog during May.
The belt of frequent fogs during the past month, as shown
graphically on the Pilot Chart for June, extended well up into the
Gulf of St. Lawrence, and across the Atlantic from shore to shore.
While the amount encountered off the Grand Banks and the coast
to the westward is but little in excess of the normal for May, yet
such great frequency of dense fog-banks east of the 4oth meridian
is very unusual. It may be attributed almost entirely to the unu-,
sual prevalence in that quarter of the ocean of southerly winds,
which lasted for fourteen days during the first two decades of the
month. These winds bring the warm, moist atmosphere from
lower latitudes far to the northward, and into contact with the
colder air of more northerly regions, this contact resulting in the
precipitation of the moisture in the form of fog. Adding to this
the fact that most of the depressions noted during the month passed
well north of the soth parallel after reaching the goth meridian,
thus lessening the clearing effect of their north-westerly winds, it
will be seen very readily that the conditions were peculiarly favora-
ble to the development of fog along the transatlantic routes.
Early in the month, small patches of fog were reported, also, to
the westward of Bermuda, about the 7oth meridian, accompanying
north-westerly winds blowing toward a slight depression in about
32° north and 63° west, on the 2d and 3d. The dense fog along
the coast north of Hatteras on the 6th, which led to the collision
between the British steamship ‘ Benison ’ and the American steam-
ship ‘ Eureka,’ by which the latter was sunk fifty-six miles east-
south-east from Cape Henry, was due to the prevalence of south-
erly winds in the western quadrants of an area of high barometer
about the Bermudas, which, blowing up the coast from over the Gulf
Stream, came into contact with the cold water of the inshore cur-
rent, with the usual result.
MENTAL SCIENCE.
Illustration of the Play-Instinct.
AN article entitled ‘ The Story of a Sand-Pile’ would not at once
suggest any thing of interest to the psychologist; nevertheless the
story as told by Prof. G. Stanley Hall (Scrzbner's Magazine, June,
1888) is full of suggestiveness to one approaching the study of
mind with an appreciation of all the various aspects that mental
phenomena assume in the world of nature. The story of the
‘sand-pile’ tells of two boys who had the advantage of playing
with a load of sand placed for that purpose in the back-yard. This
at once became the centre of all their interests, and by a gradual
growth assumed the appearance of a miniature community. Roads.
were laid out, coal placed in the ground to be afterward discoy-
ered, and a sort of cave-dwelling erected. The next summer the
evolution went on, fortunately undisturbed by parental suggestions.
@
June 8, 1888.]
The house became a board with another slanted against it; then
it was two bricks and a board on top. A bit of wood suggested to
one of the boys a horse, and that became a horse; others being
made like it, at first very rude, and afterwards with all the refinements
that a scroll-saw could add. Cattle were made and added to the
houses, there being a remarkable conservatism in adhering to an
original modei, though the boys were able to do better work. Be-
fore many summers there was a community modelled quite closely
after the village in which they lived: crops were raised, stacked,
and sold, as in town. Furthermore, the men and women of the
“sand-pile’ were named Bill Murphy, Charles Stoughton, Peter
Dana, ete., — names of real men in the village ; and the personality of
the real individual, that of the puppet and of the boy who owned
it,—for other boys had been admitted by this time, — were
strangely confused. If the real Farmer Murphy had done any thing
disreputable, the boys threatened to suspend the boy who owned
the puppet Farmer Murphy from the ‘sand-pile.’ The boys take
their men along in their pockets on a pleasure-trip, send them in
letters to distant friends to have them returned, and be said to
have seen distant places. ‘“ The best man has travelled most,
keeps his farm in the best order, has most joints in his body,
keeps dressed in the best coat of paint, and represents the best
farmer in town, and is represented by the best boy.”
The industrial evolution of this agricultural community strikingly
reminds one of the real evolution in the history of the race. The
plough, the wagon, and so on, can be seen in the several stages
paralleled by the relics in museums. The political organization
reflects that of the town, as well as that of primitive communities.
Money was first made of a kind of card-board, but, owing to the
possibility of counterfeiting, felt gouged out by an instrument was
substituted. At the beginning of the season ninety dollars and
fifty half-dollars were given to each boy. So real were these coins
to them, that silver is said to have been refused for the felt, the
varying intensity of the play-spirit being recorded in the silver value
of the felt money. When a grocer —the youngest boy — failed,
he was at first aided, and then meetings held to consider the case.
“One proposition was a general ~vo rata subscription; another
was a communistic redistribution of the money of the community.
These schemes were successfully opposed, however, and it was at
last agreed to inflate their first currency by issuing enough money
to give each boy an additional sum of ten dollars. While this
matter was under discussion, and redistribution was expected by
some, prices were affected, and a few sales were made at prices so
high as to cause embarrassment later.”
As the boys grow older, the institution begins to lose its reality,
and the circle of their interests changes. Moreover, “the golden
age of this ideal little republic has already passed,” and ‘‘a period
of over-refinement and enervating luxury’’ is likely to end its
career. Self-consciousness and the desire for approval replaced
natural interest. The parents regard the educational advantages
of this -sand-pile’ as outweighing the eight months of school-
work: it cultivates co-operation, justice, and reflection; leads to
industrial skill, saves idleness, and prevents bad habits. Its edu-
cational import is thus characterized by Professor Hall: ‘Had the
elements of all the subjects involved in the ‘sand-pile ’— indus-
trial, administrative, moral, geographical, mathematical, etc. —
been taught separately and as mere school-exercises, the result
would have been worry, waste, and chaos. Here is perfect mental
sanity and unity, but with more variety than in the most hetero-
geneous and soul-disintegrating school-curriculum. The unity of
all the diverse interests and activities of the ‘sand-pile’ is, as it
always is, ideal.”
HEAD-GROWTH IN CAMBRIDGE STUDENTS.— Mr. Francis
Galton makes an interesting report on measurements of the heads
of Cambridge (England) students, which we owe to Professor
Venna (Wadure, May 3). What is called a ‘head-product ’ may be
fairly regarded as representing average brain-volumes. It is ob-
tained by multiplying the maximum length of the head by its
maximum breadth and its maximum height above a certain plane.
This result represents the contents of a rectangular box that
would just fit over the head. This is only rudely proportional
to the brain-mass in individuals, but would be closely proportional
to it in the average of many cases. The result of the measure-
SCIENGE.
271
ments, which have been taken within the last three years, is as
follows : —
j 7 5
| “4 : A
2 i - i
esealsee 2S | 38 | Gl we
ee =o a: 4s ee I Os me
| I o & co 1) | x o 5
Ages | 42 a) oe - ey || flee as
yt) 5 3 Bt ed 5 ie| a 5 eI 5
[oR Vee Ieee las 27 | a8
| ah Ss = ES] = > °
| = | |
|
19 | 241.9 17 237-1 7o 229.1 52
20 | 244.2 54 237.9 149 | 235-1 102
21 | 241.0 52 236.4 117 | 240.2 79
|
22 248.1 50 241.7 73 240.0 66
23 | 244 6 27 239.0 33 | 235.0 23
24 245.8 25 251.2 14 | 244.4 13
|
25 |
and fF | 2489 | 33 239.1 20 | 243.5 26
| eS —= ae
upwards } | | 258 476 361
In spite of many irregularities, the following conclusions
may be fairly deduced from these figures: (1) that while,
in the population at large, brain-growth ceases after the age of
nineteen, this is not true of university students; (2) that men
who obtain high honors have considerably larger brains at
nineteen years than those who do not; (3) that this predominance
is reduced to about half its extent at the age of twenty-five, the
brain of the ‘high-honor’ man increasing by about three per cent,
that of the ‘ poll’ man by about six per cent, in this period; (4)
that the ‘high-honor’ men are presumably a class both more
precocious and more gifted than the others.
AN INTERESTING MrEmMory-TEST.— Mr. H. H. Ballard pub-
lishes in the Fournal of Education for May 3 the result of a test of
the memories and receptive powers of school-children. The sen-
tence, ‘Your redemption from the distress into which you have
fallen is in your own hands, and in no wise depends on forms of
government or modes of election,” was carefully read to one of ten
selected pupils, who repeated it as exactly as possible to the next
scholar, and this one to the third, and so on to the tenth. The
tenth pupil wrote down what he received from the ninth. In one
case the sentence emerged from this process as, ‘‘ The redemption
of your distress is in your own hands;” in another it was, “The
invention which has fallen into your hand ;” and the sentence had
dwindled into this already at the sixth pupil. In another case the
sentence was whispered instead of distinctly read, and the process
of calling on the imagination when the senses give no clear impres-
sion is illustrated in the result, which was, ‘“‘ The attempts into
which we have fallen during the government election are very low.”
In the Pittsfield, Mass., High School the sentence reduced to,
“Redemption is in your own hands, and depends upon no formal
government nor love.” In the senior class of another high school,
in which the average age of the pupils was eighteen years, the re-
sult was, “ Our redemption for our destruction has nothing to do
with us.” In still another high school it was, “ Your distress into
which you have fallen is by no means the fault of government.” A
set of eight-year old pupils reduced it to, ‘The redemption that
lies in your hand is done;” and the first class of the high school
in the same town made it, “ Your redemption into which you have
fallen is your own fault.” In one school the experiment was modified :
two pupils from each of five grades were selected, and the sentence
clearly read aloud to them all. After a minute’s interval, each of
the ten wrote down what he could of the sentence. The sentences
written by one pupil of the highest, one of the middle, and one of the
lowest grades were these : “ Your redemption from the distress into
which you have fallen lies in your own hands, and in no wise de-
pends on the government or manner of election ;” “ Yourredemption
from the distress into which you have fallen is in your own hands,
and depends in no wise upon the forms of government or the
272
modes of election ;’’ ‘Your redemption and distress in which you
have fallen depends on yourself, and in no wise on the government or
its mode of election.” Although not one of the ten got it perfectly
accurately, yet many were very near it; and they all show how
much more the wear and tear on the sentence is in passing through
ten mouths than through one. By the other process one accumu-
lates the combined inaccuracies of all, and one pupil with a very
poor receptive organ in the middle of the ten prevents the circula-~
tion of a good repetition after him. After this the sentence was
passed through the ten pupils arranged in order of grade, and is-
sued as, “ Your redemption from the distress into which you have
fallen depends entirely upon yourself, and by no means upon the
forms of government or helps from education.” The sentence
here selected is quite a difficult one, but an easier one from Emer-
son was hardly more successful. The sentence was, “All things
are double, one against another, —tit for tat, an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, blood for blood, measure for measure, love for
love,” —and the result, “ All things are good for one another.” Al-
though the test, as thus applied, is too complex to allow valid in-
ferences to be drawn from it, it at any rate shows how difficult it is
to repeat accurately what has been heard, as well as how little con-
fidence is to be placed in the declarations of persons reporting the
very words of a conversation held weeks or months before; it illus-
trates, too, ina simple form, the process by which a simple tale
becomes an elaborately embellished narrative by passing through
several hands ; and perhaps it indicates that the powers of careful
attention and retention need more systematic training than is de-
voted to them in the ordinary school-work.
HEALTH MATTERS.
SEA-SICKNESS. — Dr. W. H. Gardner, U.S.A., in a letter to the
New York Medical Record, reports having treated many cases of
sea-sickness with oxalate of cerium, in ten, fifteen, or twenty grain
doses, every two or three hours. He believes that seventy-five per
cent of all cases that occur will be cured by thisremedy. As many
of our readers are about to leave the United States for a summer's
jaunt in Europe, an admirable opportunity presents itself for testing
Dr. Gardner’s remedy. As oxalate of cerium is a recognized drug
to be administered in cases of nausea and vomiting, we see no rea-
son why it should not be efficacious in sea-sickness.
FUNCTION OF THE BILE.— Among the many mooted questions
in physiology is the function of the bile, and every new fact bearing
upon this important subject is of great value. Dr. Dastre, as re-
ported in Le Progrés Médical, recently communicated his observa-
tions to the Société de Biologie of Paris. He said that he had pre-
viously proven that the presence of bile in the stomach during dif-
ferent periods of digestion did not take from the gastric juice its
digestive power: consequently it could not be the cause of vomiting
or of severe gastric troubles. At the present time, owing to the
success of two operations for cholecysto-intestinal fistula, he
thought himself in a position to conclude that the bile contrib-
uted, as well as the pancreatic juice, to the digestion of the fats, —
an opinion which is counter to that expressed by Claude Bernard.
In fact, the two animals being in good condition four months after
the establishment of the fistula, they had been given a meal of fat
and milk, and then slaughtered during full digestion. The exam-
ination showed with absolute clearness that the lacteals were trans-
parent between the stomach and fistula, and, on the contrary, en-
tirely white and milky below the fistula; that is to say, where the
bile had been able to get: consequently, if observation on the rab-
bit shows us that the bile alone is unable to emulsify the fats, the
preceding experience shows us that the pancreatic juice alone is
also powerless. They must be mingled, in order to act well. In
other words, bile, as well as the pancreatic juice, takes part in the
digestion of fats.
vA A NEw Hypnotic.— In the Vew Vork Medzcal Record, Dr.
E. C. Wendt describes sulfonal, a new hypnotic. Chemically this
substance enjoys the euphonious designation of ‘ dizethylsulfondi-
methylmethan.’ It occurs in the form of large, flat, colorless crys-
tals, which are tasteless, and devoid of smell. Sulfonal is soluble
SCIENCE.
[Vor No: i279
in eighteen to twenty parts of boiling water. In tepid water the
solubility is only about one to one hundred. The crystals dissolve
more readily in alcohol and alcohol mixed with ether. Acids and
alkalies do not affect the composition of the body, which appears to
possess considerable chemical stability. The crystals melt at a
temperature of 275° to 260° F. According to Professor Kast of
Freiburg, sulfonal is an hypnotic pure and simple. It does not com-
pel sleep through a paralytic effect on the nerve-centres, nor through
a profound impression produced upon the vascular system. From
numerous experiments on animals, and many clinical observations
on man, the action of this new remedy would appear to consist
merely in the intensification of those factors that lead to natural sleep
in the physiological sense, or in supplying the periodical desire for
sleep in those cases where itis wanting. It is for this reason, prob-
ably, that the range of applicability of sulfonal is amore limited one
than that of some other drugs employed as hypnotics. But sulfonal
has none of the disadvantages inherent in the deadly narcotics, and
it is much more reliable than any of the bromides. This new body
does not disturb digestion, it is not constipating, it has no unpleas-
ant after-effects, it is perfectly harmless, it does not invite the for-
mation of ‘a habit,’ and, finally, it does not appear to lose its effi-
cacy even when employed for a long period.
SMOKERS’ VERTIGO. — Dr. Decaisne is reported in the Vew
Vork Medical Record as having recently investigated a number of
cases of vertigo in smokers. Out of sixty-three patients, forty-nine
were between fifty and sixty-six years of age. More than half of
them suffered, in addition, from digestive troubles, with constipa-
tion alternating with diarrhcea, insomnia, palpitations, dyspnoea, ~
and diuresis. In a third of the number there was marked intermit-
tence of the pulse, and granular pharyngitis, while others suffered
from aphthz, amblyopia, etc.. Thirty-seven were persons who
smoked habitually on an empty stomach; and these suffered from
vertigo, principally in the morning. The vertigo generally coin-
cided with suppression of perspiration and diminished excretion of
urine. The treatment consisted mainly in regulating or suppress-
ing the cause, but thirty-three out of thirty-seven patients ceased to
suffer on merely refraining from smoking on an empty stomach.
A LEPER INVASION OF THE UNITED STATES. — It is reported
that many lepers are leaving the Sandwich Islands, as soon as the
disease manifests itself, in order to prevent being banished to the
island of Molokai. Mr. Putnam, consul-general at Honolulu, be-
lieves the number of these emigrants to be considerable, and many
if not most of them flee to the United States.
RACE AND INSANITY. —In an article entitled ‘ Race and Insan-
ity,’ published in the Amerzcan Journal of Insanity, Drs. Bannis-
ter and Hektoen, physicians of the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the
Insane, express the opinion that there is little doubt but that in-
sanity is influenced by race. From the statistics of three institu-
tions in which insane persons are treated they draw the following
conclusions: 1. That in the white race the depressive types of men-
tal disease are most frequent in the Germanic and Scandinavian
peoples, and least so in the Celts: the reverse of this appears to be
the case as to the exalted or maniacal types. 2. That general
paralysis is not a disorder to which any race is immune, but one
that depends upon causes independent of racial or national pecul-
iarities. 3. That the well-known fact that insanity is much more
common amongst the foreign-born than amongst natives in this
country, is not to any great extent explainable by the shipment of
the defective classes of Europe to America. The ‘cranks’ and
epileptics and other neurotic individuals do not appear to be rep-
resented, in due proportion even, amongst the foreigners in our
asylums. The cause of the excess of foreign-born insane in this
country is, it seems probable, to be looked for mainly in the fact,
that, supposing the immigration to include only its proportion of
persons below the average of mental strength and flexibility, the
change of scene and associations, the difficulties of beginning life
among them, disappointments, homesickness, and all the other
accidents and trials that befall the new-comers, together contribute
to break down mentally a vast number who under other circum-
stances would have escaped, and largely contribute to the mass of
insanity in this country.
JUNE 8, 1888.]
ELEGERICAT, SCIENCE:
Alternating-Current Electro-Motars.
Two inventions that will greatly modify and improve the con-
ditions of electrical distribution have been for some years past the
subject of much thought and experiment among electricians. They
are the secondary battery and the alternating-current electro-motor.
To-day there are secondary batteries in use, and there are alter-
nating-current motors, that will run with some degree of success ;
but improvement is necessary in order that they may be adapted to
extensive operations, and it is only a matter of time when these
improvements will be made.
The Tesla electric motor, of which a brief description has ap-
peared in this journal, seems the most successful attempt that has
been made for the distribution of power by alternating currents.
The difficulties in the way of such a motor are these: it must start
with the maximum turning effort; when it attainsits proper speed,
it must regulate itself for varying loads; and it must be made to
work under constantly changing load; and all these requirements
are difficult to full in the same machine. In one form of motor
Mr. Tesla obtains synchronism between the revolutions of the
armature and the reversals of the feeding dynamo; that is, it reg-
ulates itself. This form has little or no turning effort at the start.
In another type a considerable turning effort is obtained, but there
is no regulation. By combining the two characteristics, a motor is
produced that will start, and when it arrives at its proper speed
will regulate, itself. This seems the most plausible plan that has
been yet suggested for the purpose. It will be remembered that
the motor presents the peculiarity of having no connection between
the armature-coils and the external circuit, currents being induced
in the former by the alternations of the field-currents, and so is the
simplest mechanical and electrical arrangement possible.
In a paper read before the Institute of Electrical Engineers, Mr.
Tesla explained the system, but unfortunately gave no data as to
the efficiency, output, etc., of the motors. Such data will probably
be forthcoming, for such a promising invention cannot but be given
an exhaustive trial; and it is to be hoped, that, when the data does
appear, it will be of a kind to at once allow an opinion to be formed
on the value of the grzzczple as well as of the particular machine
tested.
ELECTRICAL WELDING. — Among the various uses to which
electricity has been applied, the welding of metals is one of the
latest. Two distinct processes are now in use, —that of Prof.
Elihu Thomson, and that of M. Bernados. In Thomson’s method
a very heavy current is sent between the metals to be joined
(which are held firmly against one another), heating the junction
until it is to a welding heat. The junction is, of course, the point
of greatest resistance, and therefore the heat is mainly concentrated
there. The currents are obtained from the secondary of an induc-
tion-coil supplied with alternating currents: this secondary is of
very low resistance, and is secured to’the pieces to be welded by
massive clamps. It will be seen that this method is especially ap-
plicable to the welding of tubes, rods, wires, etc. The process of M.
Bernados is very different. In it the heat of the electric arc is used,
the junction to be welded being made one of the poles. Current
is obtained from accumulators especially built to resist the ill
effects of a heavy discharge rate, and the arc is directed to the
proper place by a rod of carbon held in the hand in a suit-
able holder. The method of operation consists in placing the
pieces to be welded on a heavy iron slab, which serves the double
purpose of supporting and carrying the current to the plate,
meeting the edges of the pieces, then putting the scraps of iron (if
iron is to be welded) on the junction, and melting the whole to-
gether. For welding steel or wrought iron, a mixture of sand and
lime is used as a flux; when copper is one of the metals used,
borax is employed. Mr. Ryves, who has investigated the process,
and has lately read a paper upon it before the Society of Telegraph
Engineers and Electricians, states that in nearly every case the
metal was badly burnt and spoiled by the excessive heat. M. Ber-
nados has also lately made a number of experiments on the work-
ing of various metals and the production of alloys in electrical fur-
naces. As far as welding goes, it is very probable that the electric
arc can be regulated to give the required heat without burning the
SCMSINCIS,
273
metal. Of the two welding processes, that of Professor Thomson
is surer and more easily controlled ; that of M. Bernados is more
widely applicable.
DIFFERENCE OF POTENTIAL BETWEEN METALS IN SOLU-
TIONS OF DIFFERENT STRENGTHS. — The following table is not
without interest as showing the variation in the electro-motive force
of a cell, which might occur when the solution changed in strength
from evaporation or othercauses. It is unfortunate that potassium
cyanide was chosen as the electrolyte, instead ?70f some more com-
monly used substance. One curious result will be noticed: zinc
and copper have a potential difference from a carbon electrode
which is at first considerable ; but, as the strength of the solution
increases, the two substances get nearer together in the table.
Carbon was invariably used as the positive element. The differ-
ences of potential are in volts.
Strength.......... | «006 | .025 25 ase y || I. 2. 5-16
ZAWCagncoasecass63 | 925 1.130 I350 | 12.395 1.450 1.520 1.615
Copperi-netesiecr 250 +390 1.215 | 1.270 1.295 I.425 1.535
IBrassemeniiceetrr +290 580 1.130 1.210 1.295 1.400 1.460
Platinoid. ... ...| .435 535 825 +900 | 945 1.030 1.185
German silver....| .360 500 860 | 920 g10 1.050 1.180
Silveneereresee rer {= 4.390 655 | .695 760 845 970
IWS soobea Saab 460 440 590 | 585 | 610 -640 700
Ifo dnaoosedcape +230 +300 +539 | +450 +430 470 +455
EXPANSION GALVANOMETER. — Prof. W.E. Geyer and Mr. W.
H. Bristor have invented a new and ingenious galvanometer. In
thermostats and in the balance-wheels of chronometers the differ-
ence in the rate of expansion of two metals is taken advantage of
to cause a movement, which in the one case closes or opens an
electric circuit, in the other conpensates for the linear expansion of
the wheel. Two strips of different metals are usually fastened
side by side; and, as one of them expands faster than the other, it
causes the system to bend one way or the other. As an electric
current causes heating, and as the amount of heating is proportional
to the square of the current, some such arrangement as the above
might be used for measuring current strength. The disadvantage
with the ordinary form would be that the instrument would have
to be adjusted for every change of temperature. To avoid this,
Messrs. Geyer and Bristor use a broad strip and a wire of german
silver fastened together; one end fixed, the other attached to a reg-
istering arrangement. The current passes through these strips in
series. Now, while for ordinary changes of temperature both the
strip and the wire expand alike, yet, when a current is sent through
them, the wire, having the smaller section and less radiating sur-
face, heats the faster, and its greater expansion deflects the needle.
By a suitable gearing the deflections are made directly proportional
to the currents. This instrument can measure both alternating and
direct currents. It is simple, and should be unaffected by the pres-
ence of magnets.
THE WATER-JET TELEPHONE-TRANSMITTER.— This trans-
mitter has been recently exhibited in England, where it has at-
tracted attention, both by its novelty, and its excellent performance
as a long-distance transmitter. The following is an abstract from a
lecture recently delivered by Mr. G. W. de Tunzeemann: “ The
jet-transmitter consists of a small jet of water, acidulated to ren-
der it a conductor. falling upon two electrodes, consisting respec-
tively of a platinum wire, and a platinum ring concentric with the
wire, and separated from it by a ring of glass or ebonite. The
connection between the electrodes is formed by the nappe of the
jet; and, when the jet is thrown into vibration by the sound of the
voice, the variation of resistance between the electrodes causes it
to act as a transmitter of great delicacy. This delicacy is so great
that the voice of a person speaking in an ordinary tone at a dis-
tance of fifteen or twenty feet from the instrument is reproduced
in a distant telephone with the most perfect distinctness.”
274
BOOK - REVIEWS.
Missourt, a Bone of Contention. (American Commonwealths.) By
LUCIEN CARR. New York, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 16°.
THE history of Missouri, like that of the other Western States, is
necessarily lacking in the interest that attaches to that of the older
parts of the Union; but it has elements of interest belonging to
itself, which the author of this work has skilfully availed himself of.
He begins his narrative with the earliest French explorations and
settlements in the basin of the Mississippi. and traces the history of
the region west of that river, then known as Louisiana, down to the
time of its annexation to the United States; and the chapters treat-
ing of these subjects, though they rather pass the proper limits of
a history of Missouri, are among the best in the book.
From the time of the annexation the narrative is confined to
Missouri itself; and the author then shows how the fertile spot
which had been contended for by France, Spain, and England, be-
came a new ‘ bone of contention ’ to the advocates and opponents of
slavery. The struggle began with the application vf Missouri for
admission into the Union as a slave State; and though the diffi-
culty was then thought to have been settled by the well-known
Missouri Compromise, yet this proved to be only the beginning in-
stead of the end of the trouble, which could not be removed except
by the complete abolition of slavery. Accordingly, the latter por-
tion of Mr. Carr’s work is necessarily occupied almost exclusively
with the various phases of the slavery contest and the civil war, so
far as these affected Missouri, which they gid in a marked degree.
In his account of this great struggle we are sorry to find Mr. Carr’s
sympathies so strongly on the side of the South. He does not de-
fend slavery; indeed, he shows a decided dislike of it. But, like
most of the Southerners and of their Northern sympathizers, he
fails to comprehend the moral significance of the anti-slavery move-
ment and the moral earnestness of those engaged in it. In describ-
ing the secnes and incidents of the war, however, he-shows hiniself
a firm friend of the Union; and in his last chapter he relates with
evident pleasure the action of Missouri, alone of all the Southern
States, in abolishing slavery within her borders. The stirring
themes of war and political struggle fill so large a portion of the
later chapters of the book, that we do not get from them so full an
account of the social condition of the people in the generation just
passed as might have been wished. In some of the earlier chapters,
however, the life and industry of the people are described more fully ;
and careful notice is taken of the financial disturbances that oc-
curred at various times, and of the legislation of the State in regard
to banks and railroads and the still more important subject of edu-
cation.
Taken as a whole, the author’s choice of topics is excellent ; and
he has been particularly successful in showing the connection of
Missouri’s history with that of the neighboring States and of the
Union. The style of the work, though somewhat diffuse, like most
of the historical writing of the present day, is clear and dignified ;
and some portions of the story, such as the conquest of New Mexi-
co and the events at the opening of the civil war, are related in a
way that is both interesting and impressive. The book will fll a
useful place in the series to which it belongs.
Popular Physics.
cago, Barnes.
By J. DORMAN STEELE.
Oo
New York and Chi-
TO quote from the author’s preface, “ this work has grown up in
the classroom,” and all those who have used any of Steele’s Four-
teen Weeks Series in natural science will know how admirably this
series is adapted to use with elémentary classes. The author was
in the habit of making a memorandum of any explanation which
fixed the attention of the learner, and his books were built up on
this experimental method. It is not pretended that the treatises are
exhaustive, but it is believed that they are such as to interest be-
ginners, and so to place science before them that some at least may
be induced to go further.
Shortly before his death, Dr. J. Norman Steele, finding that he
was unable longer to perform extra labor, requested Prof. W. Le-
Conte Stevens of the Packer Collegiate Institute, Brooklyn, to re-
vise the text-book in physics, as so many advances had been made
since the last edition of the ‘ Fourteen Weeks in Physics,’ published
SCIEMNICE..
(Wor, al, WNoiwe79
in 1878. Professor Stevens’s revision has been so thorough and ex-
tensive, that it has seemed desirable to change the name to ‘Steele’s
Popular Physics,’ and it is under this title that the well-known book
now makes its appearance. The book is intended for use in high
schools, and gives enough in each branch of the subject to make
clear to high-school pupils such physical phenomena as they see
about them. All those who know the reviser will feel confidence
in the thoroughness of his work.
Our Native Ferns and Thety Allies. By LUCIEN M, UNDER-
woop, Ph.D. 3d ed. New York, Holt. 12°.
THE third edition of this useful book will be welcomed by all
fern-lovers, and we predict for it a ready sale. One hundred and
fifty-six species of true ferns are described as native to the territory,
— sixteen more than were included in the first edition, printed in
1881; while of the related plants, lycopods, Zguzsete, [soet@, etc.,
sixty-eight species are given. The descriptive portion of the work
is preceded by a carefully prepared account of the structure-habits,
haunts, geological history, and the relation of Pterzdophyta to the
other sub-kingdoms of plants. This last is especially treated in
the chapter on ‘The Fern’s Place in Nature,’ including brief ac-
counts of the several systems of vegetable classification. Professor
Underwood gives greatest prominence to what he terms the ‘Ameri-
can System,’ which, dividing the 7adlophytes into three sub-king-
doms, founded entirely on the characters of the reproductive organs,
completely destroys the natural groups of algze, lichens, and fungi,
and, in the writer’s opinion, is not to be commended. This is,
however, quite unessential to the general purpose of the book.
Older specific names for many of the species are extant, and we
regret that Professor Underwood did not take the opportunity of
adopting them. In the next edition he may, perhaps, conclude to
do so.
The Fundamental Principles of Chemistry. By ROBERT GALLO-
way. London and New York, Longmans, Green, & Co.
$1.75.
Iv would probably be difficult to find a better exemplification of
the fact that the critical and creative faculties are not invariably
associated in the same individual than appears in several recent
attempts, on the part of prominent fault-finders with existing mod-
els, to produce something better in the way of elementary text-books
of science.
The volume before us emphasizes this point once more, and with
force. It is an effort to replace the chemical text-books in use in
the schools, and for teaching junior students generally, by a pro-
duction ‘‘ more in harmony with the laws of thought.” The author
has “ long heid that chemical works intended for beginners are un-
suitable as educational works; if these books extend only to a few
pages, the arrangement and construction is the same as that
adopted in Gmelin’s great work of reference in the science, which
extends to eighteen large volumes: the plan is encyclopedic, —
excellent for a book of reference, unsuitable for an educational
work. In this system the facts are unclassified ; the laws, the high-
est generalizations, are placed apart from the facts; and no plan
for teaching the language of the science, which requires to be taught
like any other language, is given beyond a few general observa-
tions.” Twenty years ago these views were announced, and, if we
are to judge from the internal evidence of the book, changes of
method during the interval which has elapsed have not commended
themselves to the author. The work is ostensibly devoted to the
“fundamental principles of chemistry;’’ but examination reveals
the fact, that, of three hundred and fifty-six pages, nearly one-half
is given up to the exposition of the subjects of molecular attrac-
tion, heat, gravitation, the properties of gases, the elastic force of
vapors, density, sublimation, precipitation, adhesion, and capillary
attraction, which are regarded as the general principles of physics
“suitable for the course of pure chemistry given in the after-part of
the work.’”” It is without doubt most desirable that the student of
chemistry should possess a knowledge of the principles of physics,
and, were this part of the work endowed with any particular noy-
elty or merit, the misleading character of the title might be passed
by; but the sad fact is, that in the preparatory half of the book we
fail to find any thing but the old tale of multitudinous facts and
Ine
JunE 8, 1888.]
principles, presented in a manner far inferior to the best modern
examples, and insufferably dull. Even in the matter of information
it is not up with the times. We are told that ‘the two prevailing
opinions with regard to the nature of heat are the ¢heory of emzs-
szon and the theory of zdulatzon ; the latter of which, it is added,
is now generally accepted, but so overburdened with inherited
terms of indefinite meaning as to occasion much confusion of mind,
and to necessitate the admission to the student seeking exactness,
that all who study the subject are impressed with their vagueness
and unsatisfactoriness. After this we could hardly be surprised to
note that the atomic hypothesis is an invention of the ‘late Dr.
Dalton,” who derived some suggestion of it from the ancient phi-
losophers, by which term, we presume, reference is made to the late
Lucretius, Leukippos, and others.
The latter half of the book, however, is so much worse, from an
educational point of view, that we are inclined, on the whole, to ad-
mire the astuteness which led to a change of base and the filling-in
of the former half with less unwieldy material, though the proceed-
ing is somewhat suggestive of the tricks of the medical practitioner
of tradition, who, failing in the diagnosis and treatment of existing
complaints, possessed the art and acuteness to get his patient into
fits, in.-the management of which he considered himself to be an
adept. As in most books on elementary chemistry, we find descrip-
tive text, directions for experiment, and problems to be solved; but
the scientific method — the careful and logical adjustment of ex-
perimental conditions to the end of securing conclusions as definite
as possible — is lacking. We are told that the elements combine
to form compounds, and the fact is illustrated by the burning of
phosphorus in oxygen, and other similar experiments; but not a
particle of evidence, beyond mere assertion, is adduced to show
that the action is synthetical rather than metathetical or analytical.
The union of two elements in more than one proportion is not proved
by appeal to the evidence of the balance, to the value of which the
author has paid tribute in connection with the elucidation of the prin-
ciples of its mechanism ; but, instead, we are treated to the follow-
ing: ‘‘ We have now to inform and demonstrate to the learner that
more than one compound can be formed, in many cases, by the union
of the same elements. This will at once be rendered easily intelligible
to him if we make use of our former comparison. There are differ-
ent words composed of the same letters: there are, for instance, two
different words composed of the letters ¢ and 9, viz., ‘to’ and
‘too ;’ the same with the letters 4 and e, viz., ‘be’ and ‘bee;’ and
other examples will at once recur to the student. In like manner,
for example, there are two compounds of carbon and oxygen: viz.,
carbon monoxide, the symbol for which is CO ; and carbon dioxide,
which, for the present, we will represent by the symbol COO. This
latter compound, it will be seen from the symbol, contains double
the quantity of oxygen the former contains.” This is puerile; but
the pendulum swings to the other extreme, and the student, not
yet informed as to the laws of combining proportions, the qualities
or constitution of acids, bases, or salts, is expected to extract an
intelligent idea from descriptions like the following, which, if not
taken bodily from “ Gmelin’s great work of reference,” might easily
have been so derived, so far as form of statement and assumption
of previous knowledge are concerned : —
“ The bones being freed from organic matter, and in form of ash,
are treated with sufficient sulphuric acid to form an acid phos-
phate : —
Ca, (PO,). + 2H.SO, = CaH (PO,). + 2CaSO,.
The solution of the acid phosphate is poured off from the insol-
uble CaSO, ; the solution is evaporated to a sirupy consistence ; it is
then mixed with a sufficient amount of charcoal, evaporated to
dryness, and afterward gradually heated to fullredness in an appro-
priate vessel. Two-thirds of the ‘phosphorus distils over, and is
condensed by the water contained in the receiving-vessel. The
operation may be regarded as consisting of two stages: Ist, the
conversion of the acid phosphate; 2d, the setting-free of the phos-
phorus :—
(1) CaH, (PO,), = Ca2 PO, + 2 H.O.
(2) 3 (Ca 2 PO,) + 10 C = Py + Ca, (PO4), + 10 CO.”
These examples are sufficient to show the spirit of the book,
which is lacking in those qualities of method which have lately
begun to appear in elementary chemical literature, and give prom-
SCIENCE:
275
ise of the evolution of something more in accord with advanced
ideas in matters of education. In our humble judgment, this vol-
ume is entirely unsuited to the needs of the modern classroom or
laboratory. |
A Companion to School Classics. By JAMES Gow. New York,
Macmillan. 16°. $1.75.
Chronological Tables. By ARTHUR C. JENNINGS. New York,
Macmillan. 12°. $1.25.
THE first of these books treats a variety of subjects that stu-
dents of the classics need to know about, and which cannot be ad-
equately dealt with in the ordinary commentaries. It is divided
into five parts, treating respectively of classical texts, the public
economy of the Greeks and Romans, the drama, and philosophy.
Mythology and geography are not included, doubtless because there
are works enough on these subjects already. The Homeric age
also is left untouched, on the ground that it is sufficiently illustrated
in Professor Jebb’s work, and others devoted to that special theme.
The second and third divisions of the work, which deal with pub-
lic affairs, are the longest, and give an excellent brief description of
the Athenian, Spartan, and Roman constitutions, with accounts of
the public assemblies and of the various officers of state and their
duties. The military and naval establishments are also described,
and there are chapters on finance, on chronology, and on weights.
and measures. In these parts of his work Mr. Gow has presented
a vast amount of information in a small compass; yet it is so well
arranged and so clearly stated, that, notwithstanding its condensa-
tion, it is read with ease and pleasure. Indeed, we do not know
where to look for so good an account of Athenian and Roman pub-
lic affairs, in a form at once clear, concise, and full enough for ordi-
nary students, as Mr. Gow has here given us.
The other parts of the work are of a more scholastic character,
especially the first, which gives a brief history of classical texts.
First comes a history of the Greek and Latin alphabets; next a de-
scription of the mode of writing and of making books in ancient
times, followed by a history of classical manuscripts in the middle
ages and after the revival of learning; and then a full account of
the means and methods of textual criticism. The chapters devoted:
to these subjects are necessarily somewhat dry; but the informa-
tion they contain will be useful not only to young students, but to:
all persons interested in the history of literature. The accounts of
the drama and philosophy are briefer than the other portions of the
work, but are sufficient for the ordinary purposes of classical stu-
dents.
From the analysis here given it will be apparent that Mr. Gow’s.
work is different from the other helps to classical study that are
now so abundant; and it contains so much that is excellent, that
we hope to see it introduced into the schools of this country. Of
course, in a work dealing with so many subjects, and necessarily
touching many controverted points, it is difficult to secure un-
impeachable accuracy ; and we can well believe the author when
he says that he has found the preparation of the work extremely
difficult. Nevertheless, its accuracy, so far as we have been able
to test it, is of a high order; while in style and arrangement it is.
much superior to most of the works with which it is naturally com-
pared.
Mr. Jennings’s work is a synchronistic arrangement of the chief
events of ancient history, and will be a useful companion to all stu-
dents of the ancient world. It is not confined to Greek and Ro-
man affairs, though these necessarily occupy the foremost place,
but gives also the dates of the leading events in Jewish, Egyptian,
and Assyrian history, and of some specially important occurrences.
in India and China. The tables are arranged in six columns, deal-
ing respectively with political history; Jewish church history ;
wars, popular movements, catastrophes ; biography and topogra-
phy; inventions, discoveries, science, art; laws, literature, drama,
institutions. The chronology ranges from the received date of the
foundation of Rome, 753 B.C., down to the Christian era. In re—
gard to very many facts of ancient history, exactness of date, as the
author remarks, is unattainable ; and he has thought it best to ad-
here in the main to the schemes of chronology usually found in dic-
tionaries of dates, and other educational works. The special excel-
lence of the work lies, of course, in its parallel presentation of
276
‘events in many nations, and in many different departments of hu-
‘man activity; and in this respect it has eminent advantages over
most other chronological works.
We should add that both the works here noticed are provided
with elaborate indexes, which greatly enhance their usefulness.
Physical and Industrial Training of Criminals. By HAMILTON
D. Wey. (Monographs of the Industrial Education Associa-
tion, Vol. I. No. 3.) New York, Industr. Educ. Assoc.
AMONG the many innovations in penal science introduced at
the New York State Reformatory, there is perhaps none with so
‘great an interest to the scientist and the educator as the experiment
-of reaching the unresponsive intellects of refractory and stupid crim-
inals through their muscles. This experiment, noticed in these
‘columns some time ago, carried with it the proof of its success. It
was due to the author of this pamphlet, Dr. H. D. Wey, physician
‘to the reformatory at Elmira. In the present pamphlet Dr. Wey
rehearses this experiment, and surrounds it with avaluable analysis
of the criminal character, — the only sound basis of true and last-
ting reform. He here portrays the deviation of the psychophysical
‘organism of the criminal from that of his more fortunate fellow-
men, and deduces from it the sound conclusion that the only
method of restoring the criminal to a worthy place in the commu-
nity is to re-organize that fundamental re-action between an indi-
vidual and his environment that makes crime tempting. For this
‘purpose one must educate the criminal, and that not only in the
usual sense of literary instruction, but with the additional meaning
‘of re-forming the habits of his body and mind; and when, in es-
pecially dull and sluggish men, it was found that a direct appeal to
the will and the intellect was unsatisfactory, the logical step was
taken of treating the muscles, the physiological organs of the will:
for modern physiology tells us that in muscular exercise we develop
not only the muscle, but, more important, the nerve-cell that con-
trols its action; we are building brain and power alike. Such a
purely physical training brought the average marks of a dozen
most unpromising men for purely inteliectual studies from 46 per
‘cent to 71 per cent. The effect is immediate, and, if the treat-
ment is sufficiently prolonged, is lasting.
The second portion of the pamphlet is devoted to the industrial
system at Elmira. Idleness is the source of a good share of the
world’s misery ; and every moment of a prisoner’s life ought to be
systematically occupied. Moreover, the work should be made as
interesting as possible, not assume the air of a task imposed as a
process of torture. Add to this, that the industrial training must
be such as to fit the liberated man to earn his livelihood, and at once
(for it is immediately after liberation that the greatest danger exists),
and it seems to follow as a necessary deduction that the reforma-
tory workshop must approximate to the real hives of production in
the surrounding world. In addition, the educational value of manual
training is to be made a special point. This is what the reforma-
tory at Elmira is attempting to do; and the success of the enter-
prise, after it is properly understood both by the men themselves
and by the public, seems beyond question. This monograph, it is
hoped, will be the means of extending the sound teachings and
practices in vogue at the New York Reformatory.
Negro Myths from the Georgza Coast. By CHARLES C. JONES,
Jun. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.
122
THE title of this book is not quite correct, for the tales told in it
are not myths, but fables. Some such stories had already been
collected by other writers ; but Mr. Jones has found in the swamp
region of Georgia and the Carolinas a comparatively unknown field,
in which he has gleaned much that is new. The stories are told in
the patozs of the negroes themselves; which seems to us a mis-
take, as they are not only harder to read, but less interesting, than
they would be in correct English. Moreover, many of the linguis-
tic peculiarities are mere mispronunciations, while others are con-
tractions such as we all use in conversation, and only a few are real
dialectical characteristics.
The characters in the fables are mostly animals, the rabbit being
the favorite, while the wolf and the alligator are frequently intro-
duced. The stories show not a little ingenuity and humor, and
some of them are quite entertaining. One of the best is that about
SCHEIN GI:
[ Vorg2sls Nox eo
the monkey who didn’t know what trouble was, and who went to
the Devil to find out. The Devil gave him a closed bag, and told
him to go out into the midst of a large field near by, and then open
the bag, and he would find an answer to his inquiry. The monkey
obeyed, and when he had reached the middle of the field opened
the bag, when out jumped a bull-dog. The monkey started and
ran, and the dog ran after him until they reached a wood, when the
monkey succeeded in climbing a tree, but not without the loss of his
tail. The dog staid by the tree and watched till he was hungry,
and had to go off in search of food. Then the monkey came down
and went home to his wife, telling her that he had had enough of
trouble. The moral is obvious: never search for trouble, but wait
till it comes to you.
Besides the fables, a few other stories are given, the most impor-
tant being those relating to the negro belief in spirits, fetiches, and
charms. These show, what was already known from other sources,
that the Southern negroes are hardly less superstitious in some re-
spects than their African ancestors, and that a great deal will have
to be done to raise them to the level of civilization.
Lessons tn Geometry, for the Use of Beginners. By G. A. HILt,
A.M. Boston, Ginn.
THIS admirable little book is a grammar-school geometry, and
as such lies midway between the courses in geometrical drawing
followed in some of our city schools, and a course in ordinary
demonstrative geometry. It is intended to follow the study of
arithmetic. The method followed is in great part that of question
and answer. Each new idea is put in very simplelanguage. Defi-
nitions are carefully explained, and in many cases illustrated by
cuts. In short, every difficulty which the pupil is likely to meet
with seems to have been anticipated. The few demonstrations
that are given are all based on the method of equal triangles. The
most important feature of the book is the large number of exercises.
Of these, those which involve the metric system are separated from
the others, and can be omitted if desired. A cheap case of draw-
ing-instruments accompanies the book. The book is adapted to
the needs of every grammar-school in the country, and could with
advantage be used in all of them. For practical knowledge gained,
few branches would better repay the time devoted to the study of
this book. It is printed in the elegant style in which the publishers
are accustomed to issue their works. G. W. SAWIN.
Trigonometry for Beginners. By Rey. J. B. Lock, M.A. New
York, Macmillan, 1886. 16°. 60 cents.
THIS little book is an abridgment of the ‘ Elementary Trigonom-
etry’ by the same author. Very little knowledge of geometry is
assumed. Some points, such as the circular measure of an angle,
the fact that the ratios depend only on the magnitude of the an-
gle, and the explanation of tables, are much better put than it is
customary to find them. The book also contains a very large num-
ber (about seven hundred and fifty) of exercises, which are much
better chosen than those in the trigonometries in common use,
those in formula-work being particularly good. These exercises,
together with the low price of the book, make it especially valuable
as a secondary treatise for teachers who are using another text-
book. The book is too small for the amount it contains, and as a
consequence its pages are much crowded.
By R.C. J. Nixon, M.A. Oxford, Claren-
(New York, Macmillan, go cents.)
1225
Geometry in Space.
don Pr.
THIS is a brief treatment of solid geometry, modelled on that of
Euclid. A short introduction on perspective is prefixed, however,
and some modern ideas are introduced, such as anharmonic ratio,
similitude, inversion, and poles and polars, these subjects being
very briefly treated. The number of exercises is also large. A
chapter on the geometrical theory of perspective is appended. The
book is well printed, but would be much improved if the type were
larger.
T2s
NOTES AND NEWS.
THE third part of the annual report of the Geological Survey
of Pennsylvania has just beenissued. It treats of the operations in
the anthracite-coal region, and is accompanied by an atlas, embra-
ing the coal-region, and based upon the triangulation of the United
June 8, 1888. ]
States Coast Survey. The report contains, besides the results of
geological surveys, valuable statistics of the production and ship-
ment of anthracite coal for 1885 and 1886. At the same time have
been issued the atlas-sheets embracing Bucks and Montgomery
Counties.
—Ch. Montigny was led by an occasional observation to the
study of the scintillations of stars and their relations to atmospheric
disturbances. On Dec. 7, 1886, he noticed, during his observations
at Brussels, that the scintillations of the stars suddenly increased,
although the meteorological instruments showed no change what-
ever. A few hours later, however, the barometer began to sink,
and a gale arose which lasted for two days. This led the observer
to the conclusion that the high strata of the atmosphere were dis-
turbed hours before the instruments were in any way affected. A
thorough investigation of observations showed that this was of fre-
quent occurrence, and that the scintillations also continued after the
storm had passed. Besides this, they were the stronger the fiercer
the storms raged, and the nearer the minimum passed the place of
observation.
— The ‘Second Annual Report of the Meteorological Institute of
Roumania for the Year 1886’ is a valuable contribution to our
knowledge of the climate of south-eastern Europe. It contains
only the results of observations made at Bucharest, although a consid-
erable number of stations of the second order have collected meteor-
ological data, the appropriations being insufficient for their publica-
tion. The director of the institute, Prof. Stefan C. Hepitos, well de-
serves thethanks of meteorologists for the valuable work he has done,
the amount of which is astonishing, considering that all has been done
with an annual appropriation of less than $2,400. He sets forth an
interesting plan of increasing the number of stations and of a thor-
ough study of the climatic elements of Roumania, which, if carried
out, would give us the much-desired data on the meteorology of
that region.
—The Prince of Monaco has published several preliminary
papers on the results of the cruises of his sailing yacht ‘ L’Hiron-
delle.’ In 1885 her course was from Lorient to Cape Finisterre and
the Azores, whence an excursion was made north-westward as far
as 44° north latitude. Having returned to the Azores, she sailed
north-north-west as far as 50° north latitude, and then returned to
Lorient. In 1886 the prince sailed westward from Cape Finisterre
until he reached the twentieth degree west from Paris, which he
followed to 50° north latitude. The special object of this cruise
being to ascertain the connection of the currents of the Bay of
Biscay with those of the Atlantic, a great number of floats were
immersed on this route, part of which were found again, thus fur-
nishing valuable material regarding the currents of the North
Atlantic. The last cruise was even more extended than the first
ones. Starting from the Azores, the prince followed a straight line
to Newfoundland, thus crossing the Gulf Stream drift. On this line
93! floats were set adrift. At the same time, soundings, bathy-
thermometrical readings, and dredgings were made. Attention
was paid to the subject of fisheries, particularly to that of the sar-
dine, which was formerly so abundant on the French coasts, while
it has now almost disappeared.
— Prof. F. W. Clark of the National Museum will make a unique
collection of mineral species for exhibition at the Cincinnati Expo-
sition. A portion of the twenty-five thousand dollars appropriated
by Congress to enable the Government of the United States to
participate in that exposition has been placed at Professor Clark’s
disposition, and he will supplement the specimens he will select
from the museum collection with others obtained especially for this
occasion. The collection will be of great scientific value.
— Petermann’s Mztteclungen for May publishes a full account of
Captain van Géle’s exploration of the Obangi, accompanied by a
map which has been constructed by B. Hassenstein, who reduced
Junker’s observations in the country adjoining the upper Welle.
He calls attention to the important fact that Junker learned of the
existence of a chief called Bangusso four days’ journey west from
Singio. Van Géle discovered a northern tributary of the Welle,
which was called by the natives Bangasso as coming from Bangas-
SClIENGE
277°
so: therefore it is probable that Van Géle’s Bangasso is the lower
course of Junker’s Mbomo, on the banks of which Bangusso’s vil-
lage is situated. In this case the Kutu would prove to be a tribu-
tary of the Mbomo. Since the great discoveries in the basin of the
Kassai no expedition has helped more to make clear the hydrog-
raphy of Central Africa than Van Géle’s, the limits of the Kongo:
watershed being now pretty well known.
— The Linnean Society held its centenary celebration May 24,
according to ature of that date. The following eulogia were
pronounced : on Linnzeus, by Prof. Thore Fries, the present occu-
pant of the chair of botany at Upsala; on Robert Brown, by Sir
Joseph Hooker; on Charles Darwin, by Professor Flower; on
George Bentham, by Mr. W. T. Thiselton Dyer. The Linnzan
gold medal, instituted by the society on the occasion of its cente-
nary, was presented to Sir Joseph Hooker (botanist) and Sir Rich-
ard Owen (zoologist). In subsequent years the presentation will
be alternately to a botanist and zodlogist.
—‘ Popular Physics,’ by J. Dorman Steele, Ph.D. (A. S. Barnes.
& Co., publishers, New York), forms the third of a new series.
upon the sciences. Many of the features of its parent book, ‘ Four-
teen Weeks in Physics,’ will serve to identify this new work.
T. Fisher Unwin, 26 Paternoster Square, London, announces a
second edition, revised and rewritten on the basis of the first.
edition by Edward Newman, of « Birdsnesting and Bird-skinning, —
a description of the nests and eggs of birds which breed in Britain
with directions for their collection and preservation, a chapter on
bird-skinning, and description and woodcuts of the instruments.
necessary to the collector, — by Miller Christy. Messrs. James.
W. Queen & Co., Philadelphia, have just issued a new and very
complete edition of their catalogue of electrical testing apparatus.
This covers nearly every form of apparatus called for in a well-
equipped electrical laboratory.
—In the June Azdover Review Dr. Bemis continues his papers on
immigration, pointing out in the present number the distribution of
our immigrants. The experiment at Harvard in solving the problem
of the relation of religion in its outward form to university life, is.
clearly stated by Rev. D. N. Beach. Professor James of the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania gives an account of the requirements for-
the degree of Ph.D. in German universities. The Americar
Garden for June is a special rose number. The approaching
‘heated term’ renders an article on ‘Summer Indigestion and
Diarrhoea’ in the current number of Badyhood seasonable. *
— It is not often that a part of Edwards’s superb ‘ Butterflies of
North America’ appears with so much interesting matter in it as
is found in the fifth number, just issued. A rare form of Califor-
nian Jfelztea is figured, — of which all efforts to obtain the early.
stages have so far been unsuccessful, — two species of Zyebza from
the Rocky Mountains, and our eastern Portlandza. The plate of-
the latter is crowded with figures of early stages in most exquisite-
delineation. Although figured long ago by Abbot, his drawings,
published by Boisduval & LeConte, were among the worst he ever
made, so as to be quite misleading; while Mr. Edwards figures
also the egg and every stage of the caterpillar, —a thing the more
difficult to do, as it hibernates in the middle of its larval life. The
text gives a complete history of this interesting and excessively
local species, the habits of which are described in very different
terms by different observers.’ But the most interesting of all is the
plate of Evebza, which figures, as we have said, two species, giving
for one of them the egg and earliest stage of the caterpillar; the
latter never before figured or described for this genus, although
thirty or forty species are known in Europe. That it should finally
be made known by a naturalist in Eastern America, where it is un-
known, is a curious commentary on the zeal of our transatlantic
brethren. The species has been taken only by one collector, and
only at a height of from twelve thousand to fourteen thousand feet
on the front range of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, where the
ground is covered by broken black rocks, above which the butter-
fly, which is of a deep black color, rarely rises far, and upon which
when alighted it can scarcely be detected. When we learn from
the cover that the expense of the preceding number was only
278 SCE NCE:
partly covered by a grant from the Elizabeth Thompson science
fund (the first help the author has had), we can gauge to some
extent our past pecuniary indebtedness to the indefatigable author,
who steadily issues these incomparable iconographs.
—W. William Topley, general secretary of the committee on
organization of the coming (fourth) session of the International
Geological Congress in London, desires that all scientific societies,
libraries, institutions of learning, and individuals having any in-
terest in the publications relating to the purpose of the congress,
and the volume of its Proceedings containing the reports, papers,
maps, etc., should secure these publications at the trifling cost of
the membership fee to the congress, of ten shillings, or about two
dollars and a half. For every such sum sent to him at the museum,
28 Jermyn Street, London, the sender, whether an institution or an
individual, will receive all the documents which it or he would re-
‘ceive were the sender actually present as amember of the congress.
Some of these publications, not to speak of the volume, will be of
‘great value, and cannot be otherwise procured. Address William
Topley, Esq., general secretary International Congress of Geolo-
-gists, Museum, 28 Jermyn Street, London. The volumes of previous
sessions of the congress alone are now difficult to procure at twice
this cost, or more.
— The Royal Society of Canada has, since its establishment, done
much to promote the interests of science in the Dominion. In_ his
annual address delivered at the recent meeting which was held in
‘Ottawa May 22-24, the president, Dr. Lawson of Halifax, reviewed
the work of the society during the past year. The Transactions of
‘the society for 1887 fill a large volume; although, of seventy papers
-which were presented, only forty were printed, the rest being kept
‘back by the authors for the purpose of being perfected by additional
-work. He called attention to the preponderance of papers in the
-geological and biological section over those in the sections of Eng-
lish and French literature, which had increased more and more,
showing the greater interest taken in science as compared to his-
tory and philology. In the course of his address he urged the
granting of aid from the British Parliament for the purpose of mak-
ing observations of tides and currents. This would not only be of
substantial value to the shipping community, but would be a bene-
fit to the country at large. A committee was appointed to co-
operate with the British Association in pressing the necessity of
such observations upon the Parliament, but so far no practical re-
-sult has followed. A scientific federation of the empire, which was
‘being agitated under the auspices of the Royal Society in London,
also engaged attention, and was considered a matter of the greatest
importance, in view of the aid that could be given to a geological
survey of the Dominion. A committee appointed to inquire into
ithe matter reported favorably on the subject, and the council of the
Royal Society was given permission to act upon this report. On
Friday the sections presented their reports. The section for French
‘literature stated that they had decided to establish a fund of ten
‘thousand dollars for a prize at the French Academy, to be called
“The New France Prize;’ the interest, three hundred dollars, to be
‘given in annual prizes to the author of the best work in French, to be
published in France or Canada, on a subject to be determined by
the academy. Sanford Fleming was elected president for the en-
Suing year.
LEDGER S: LO RHE EDITOR:
*." 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.
The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of
the journal.
Genealogy of Ideas.
IN the study of the genealogy of ideas there is a series of ques-
tions which have sprung up as corollaries to the problems involved
in similarities. In Col. Lane Fox’s exhibition of weapons, structure
is the fundamental concept. All weapons of the same plan of
structure are in the same row. The second concept is complexity
of form and structure, and the pieces are arranged in their row ac-
cording to their elaboration, the worst on the left. No good
[ VoL. X]. No. 279
anthropologist would argue from this order that the row represented
a genealogical line, in which each one at the right is child of the
one immediately on its left. The only safe conclusion is, that the
history of invention has travelled somewhat in this manner.
The corollary to all this is, that arranging the arts of different
races in such a developmental series gives us a fair means of gau-
ging these races in the scale of excellence and advancement. If
people A are found in the whole group of series to stand on the
left of people B, then they are an inferior people. If, on the con-
trary, we make ourselves A, and, comparing our inventions and
institutions of all kinds with those of B, we discover that we stand
on the right rather than on the left, there should be no hesitation
in rating ourselves accordingly.
The next corollary is, that we cannot neglect historical studies.
Genealogies are to be traced historically. The Russian banjo did
not descend from the Aleut banjo, but really descended to it, and
shows that which occurs again and again in arts and institutions,
the degradation of invention. O. T. MASON.
Washington, May 30.
New York Schools.
AFTER investigating the English musical system known as the
Tonic-Sol-Fa, and finding its great superiority to the staff method,
which I had taught for twenty years, I naturally sought to interest
music-teachers and educational people in the system. For this
purpose I had several interviews with Superintendent Jasper. My
reception from him was about as cordial as if I had been the ven-
dor of a quack nostrum. At last he settled the question by saying
very emphatically, ‘“ Mr. Seward, I am ofposed to the Tonic-Sol-Fa
System!” As he knew nothing about it, and refused to give any
attention to the overwhelming testimony of English and American
teachers, in favor of the system,I was led to ask myself what prog-
ress could possibly be made by the New York schools in any direc-
tion under the control of such a superintendent.
THEODORE F. SEWARD.
East Orange, N.J., May 30.
YOUR editorial note in the issue of your paper for May 25, dis-
cussing the system employed in the New York public schools and
the relation of the present superintendent to it, ought to have been
read by every teacher in New York City. The truth is, that bar-
nacles by the score are nourished and fattened by the present
state of affairs, and all their powerful influence is enlisted against
any change. The publishers and the politicians run the schools at
present, and neither publishers nor politicians hesitate to use cor-
rupt and debasing means to attain their ends. One man who
knows as well as any one else —if not better than any one else —
how thoroughly rotten and inefficient the present administration is,
takes the stand, and calmly testifies that it is scholastically perfect
and sound! Why? Because his text-books are used, and he fears
their being displaced by others if a new régzyze is inaugurated, or
if he offends the “‘ powers that be” at present.
New York’s citizens do not understand the present crisis, or
there would be an agitation which would put those in favor of
high license, clean streets, or home rule into a dismal shade. The
minds and manners of nearly two hundred thousand children are
involved. Can nothing be done ?
A PROFESSIONAL OBSERVER.
New York, June 1.
Answers.
32. HUMAN BEINGS AS PACK-ANIMALS. — Referring to my
friend Professor Mason’s query No. 32, I beg to refer him to Dar-
win’s ‘ Voyage of the Beagle,’ Chapter XVI., pp. 340 and 341, fora
capital account of the ‘duty’ of men used as beasts of burden.
The passage is too long to quote here, but any one interested can
easily turn to it. The Chinese porters of San Francisco would fur-
nish him with examples of high ‘duty’ also. I regret that I can-
not give numerical estimates. I can only say that loads which I
have vainly tried to lift from the ground were carried by undersized
Chinese at quite a rapid walk. In many cases such loads are car-
ried up and down hills too steep to drive upon.
EDWARD S. HOLDEN.
San José, Cal., May 28.
June 8, 1888. |
SIIEIN Cle.
lll
Bishops Potter, Stevens, and Robertson ; Presidents Mark Hopkins, Hitchcock, and Barnard;
Profs. Parker, Draper, and Beard; and thousands of the world’s best brain workers, have used and
recommended CROSBY’S VITALIZED PHOSPHITES, for the relief of Nervous Derange-
ments, Brain Weariness, Dyspepsia, and Debility.
It is a Vital Nutrient Phosphzte, not an inert Laboratory Phosphate.
56 W. 25th St., N. Y.
For sale by Druggists, or sent by Mail, $1.
BOOK-NOTES.
—‘ The Building of a Railway ’ — the first
of a series of railroad articles to begin in the
June number of Scrzbner’s Magazine —is
said to be a remarkably succinct and enter-
taining description of the whole process of
railway construction, from the engineer’s pre-
liminary survey to the final laying of the
track.
— Messrs. Ticknor & Co. announce for im-
mediate issue revised editions of 1888, of
their guide-books of New England, White
Mountains, and the Maritime Provinces. The
June volumes of Ticknor’s Paper Series will
be as follows: ‘Sons and Daughters,’ by the
author of ‘The Story of Margaret Kent ’ and
«Queen Money;’ and ‘Agnes Surriage,’ by
Edwin Lassetter Bynner.
Calendar of Societies.
Biological Society, Washington.
May 19. —¥. W. True, The Hawaiian Bat ;
William T. Hornaday, Man-Eating Crocodiles ;
€. Hart Merriam, A Revision of the Dipodide ;
¥F, A. Lucas, The Affinities of Chamea.
Anthropological Society, Washington.
May 15. — Francis La Flesche, Funeral Cus-
toms of the Onahas; Garrick Mallery, Algon-
kin Glyphs on Bark and Stone,
Philosophical Society, Washington.
May 26. — Robert T. Edes, The Sphygmo-
graph; H. A. Hazen, The Recent Mount Ver-
non, Ill., Tornado ; Merwin—Marie Snell. Ob-
servations on Certain Hypnotic Experiments of
the Comte de Maricourt ; E. D. Cope, The Re-
Jation of Consciousness t» Animal Motion.
Natural Science Association, Staten Island.
May 12.— William I. Davis, Entomological
Noes; Samuel Henshaw, Discovery of a Wild
Rabbit's Nest in a Small Pile of Tobacco-
Stems.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Boston.
May 29 — William Everett, Biographica
Notice of the Late Hugh A.J. Munro; Arthu
Searle, Biographical Notice of the Late Alvan
Cluk.
Engineers’ Club, St. Louis.
Muay 16. — Charles F. White, The Failure or
a Firmenich Boiler; Louis Stockett, A Well
Ventilated Mine.
University Science Club, Topeka, Kan.
May 25.—F. 11. Snow, The Di-covery and Sig-
nificance of Stipules upon Certain Fossil Leaves
of the Dikota; F.O. Marvin, Noe on May-
netic Variation in Kansas; L. E. Sayre, Isola-
tion of Alkaloids; The Rosin Weed; V. L.
Kellogg, A List of Birds of Estes Park, Colo-
xado; Notes on the Geology of Lyon County,
Kan.; Bird-Migration in Kansas; E. H. S.
Bailey, Relation between Acid Taste and
Strength of Acids; W. S. Franklin, An Exten-
sion of Fourrier’s Theorem; A Soap-Bubble
Electrometer ; A Recording Chronograph ; Miss
Gertrude Crotty, Dissection of the Iliac Artery ;
E. Miller, Methods in Analytical Geometry ;
L. I. Blake and E. F. Stimpson, Resistance of
Defective Joints cut from the Lawrence Elec-
tric Light Circuits; L. L. Dyche, Notes on
Mounting Mammals; H. L. Raymond, Com-
mercial Sirup Iodide of Iron; E. C. Murphy,
Position of Moving Load which produces Maxi-
mum in Bending Beams and Arch Ribs; C. FE.
Springer, Experiment on Failure of Retaining
Walls; W. S. Franklin and V. L. Kellogg, The
Perception of Time ; The Psychology of Match-
ing Pennies.
Publications received at Editor’s Office,
14-26,
May
Anperson, J. W.. Medical Nursing. 3d ed. Glasgow,
Maclehose & Sons. 224p. 16°. $1
BisiioGRaAPHER, The, and Reference List.
1. May, 1888. 2. Buffalo, N.Y., Moulton, Wen-
borne & Co. 30 p. 8°. $2 per year.
Ceccu1, A. Fiinf Jahre in Ostafrika. Leipzig, Brock-
haus. 541 p. 8°. (New York, Stechert, $5 50.)
Dryer, C. R. Science in Secondary Schools. A Prize
Essay. Fort Wayne, Ind.,G.A.Bacon. 14 p. 8°.
Goopr,G.B. American Fishes. New York, Standard
Book Co. 496p. 8°.
Nixon. R.C. J., ed. Geometry in Space. Oxford, Clar-
endon Pr. 101 p. 12°. (New York, Macmillan, 90
cents.)
Sr. Bris, T.de. Discovery of the Origin of the Name of
America. New York, Amer. News Co. 140 p. 8°.
50 cents
Socrera degli Alpinisti Tridentini, XIII_ Annuario.
Anno Sociale 1886-87. Rovereto, Ditta V. Sottochiesa,
Pr. 534 p- 8°.
Srrecer’s Hand-Atlas.
Vol. 1. No.
Lief. i. Gotha, Perthes. f°.
GERMAN SIMPLIFIED.— SPANISH SIMPLI-
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“EXACT PHONOGRAPHY;
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SIGNS,”’ by Geo. R. lishep, Stenographer of N.Y.
Stock Exchange, member ( nd in 1883 President) N.Y.
State Stenogr’rs’ Ass’n, &c. Complete Text-Book, —
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THEO. C. ROSE, official Supreme Court Stenog’r, El-
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EDWARD B, DICKINSON, New York City, President
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expert stenographer, whatever system he may write, will
concede, 1n looking over this system, that it can be writ-
ten as rapidly as any of the recognized systems, so far as
its structural peculiarities are concerned. As to the ac-
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[VoL. XI. No. 280
A New Werk on the Cumulative Method.
—THE—
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AT ASBURY PARK, N.J., AND AT OLD ORCHARD BEACH, ME.
The Berlitz Method is acknowledged by all first-class American and European authorities as the best of all na-
tural methods
native teachers are employed. . >
instruction highly interesting and eminently practical.
and acontinual practice in French and German conversation.
ers is free
Instruction will be given by the regular professors of the Berlitz Schools, where only the best of
Their long exp“rience and unparalleled success in teaching languages will make their
The course consists of numerous lessons, lectures, excursions,
The terms are very low. A special course for teach-
For sample pages of the French and the German books, circulars, etc , apply to
BERLITZ & CO, W. Madison Square, N.Y
COLUMBIA COLLEGE, |
SCHOOL OF MINES.
Summer School in Photography.
There will be a Summer School in Photography, be-
ginning June rs5th, to continue for three months, to in-
clude theoretical and practical instruction in modern
Photography.
As the Acco nmodations will be limited to 20 or25 stu-
dents, those who wish to enter should apply at once.
Apply to GEORGE F. FISHER, Registrar, School
of Mines, Columbia College
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.
New York, Roslyn, Long Island.
WE BRYANT SCHOOL.—A BOARDING
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GEO. BRUCE CORTELYOU, Principal.
New York, Peekskill.
UMMER SCHOOL FOR BOYS. — PEEKSKILL
Military Academy, June 20th to September sth, "88.
Send tor circular.
Joun N. Tirpen, A M., M.D., Peekskill, N.Y.
At MOUNT HOPE LADIES SEMINARY,
TARRYTOWN-ON-THE-Hupson, N. Y.,
$300 pays board and tuitions per school year. Music
and art only extras. Best advantages with home care.
Opens Sept. 26th.
ROBT. C. FLACK, A.M., Principal.
GU NWVERSI CY OF VIRGINIA SCIENTIFIC AND
Engineering Schools. For catalogue, address,
C. S. Venable, Chairman of Faculty,
P.O., University of Va., Va.
Massachusetts, Boston, 152 Huntington Avenue.
ME. E. DECOMBES’ FRENCH AND ENG
lish Home School for six girls, opens September 19,
No extras. Highest References.
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MAGIC
LANTERNS.
eae WCE
FRIDAY, JUNE 15, 1888.
THE LAST REPORT of the statistician of the Agricultural De-
partment presents some interesting data for the students of eco-
nomics in that portion of it which deals with farm-labor and its
wages. Curiously enough, the result of the May, 1888, investiga-
tion of wages of farm-labor is almost identical with that of three
years ago. The changes are very slight, though local differences
occur, the averages of the geographical sections or groups of States
being changed very little. The average rate per month, where the
laborer boards himself, is a few cents lower in the Middle and
Western States and in California, and a very little higher in the
South and in New England. The highest rates obtained in 1866 in
the Northern and Western States. In California and in the South
there was a positive advance between that date and 1869. The
investigation of 1875, a year or two after the monetary crisis ap-
peared, showed decline in each section, which continued for several
years, culminating in 1879, the date of lowest prices of all Ameri-
‘can farm-products. The decline from 1866 to 1879 amounted to
39 per cent in the Eastern States, 35 in the Middle, 30in the West-
ern States, and 17 in the Southern States. In California the rate
of averages was well sustained, rising at first, but standing in 1879
higher than in 1866.
By a carefully constructed diagram Mr. Dodge shows the course
of prices for more than twenty years, and the diagram is a forcible
picture of the fearful depression caused by the six years of panic,
from which a slow recovery began in 1879. The sharp decline
from 1886, except in California, where the highest point after the
war is noted in 1869, is a fall from an era of inflation, in which
speculative values were all the higher from being stated in a depre-
‘ciated currency. The present values appear to be on a more nat-
ural and stable basis. The rise was coincident with the return to
specie payments, and the natural level was reached by a bound as
soon as the pressure which depressed was removed. It is curious
to note, further, that, at the lowest ebb of wages, rates were higher
in the West than in the Middle States, and slightly above the
lowest point reached in the Eastern States, because the soil was
still cultivated, and crops were grown in their usual quantity, while
much of the manufacturing industry was suspended. This West-
ern line of wages would not have dipped so low but for the immi-
gration to the West of Eastern operatives and artisans out of work,
seeking employment and future homes.
There is a sufficiency of farm-labor in this country, as a whole,
with a comparatively even balance between the geographical divis-
ions. There are localities in perhaps every State where scarcity
exists, and others having a superabundance. There is in some
places a scarcity of agricultural labor caused by demand at higher
wages for labor in some specific local industry. There is reported
now, as always heretofore, a tendency to exercise distinctive pref-
erences, and encourage peculiar aptitudes, for professions and
avocations outside of agriculture, generally leading away from the
country to the town or city. A temporary disturbance of the re-
lation between demand and supply is found in some localities as a
result of asomewhat rapid change in the character of the rural in-
dustries pursued. Where general farming has been partly replaced
by an extension of pastoral industry, the effect has been to reduce
the demand for labor; but in other cases there is a notable increase
in gardening and fruit-growing, which occasion a large increase in
the labor required for the cultivation of a given area. The con-
tinued development of truck-farming, near many of the navigable
waters and some of the railroad-lines of the South, affords a con-
spicuous example of the latter class of changes.
A considerable number of reports from the more Atlantic coast
States, and from some farther West, mention the migration of
laborers as a cause of a noticeable reduction in the supply of labor.
Usually the movement is simply a part of the general westward
drift of population, but there are some movements of a more
limited and special character. In Mississippi, for example, the
reports from certain counties mention the departure of many
colored laborers to the richer lands of the Mississippi bottoms or of
the Yazoo delta, and a similar movement from a thin upland soil to
river-bottom lands is also mentioned by some correspondents in
Louisiana and Arkansas. Some reports from Virginia and North
Carolina mention the departure of many colored people for the
North. Others from the same and other States refer to a move-
ment southward. Some Alabama reports mention a movement of
colored laborers to settle on public land in that State as home-
steaders. One North Carolina report, that from Cabarrus County,
states that forty colored men had left for California, but the labor-
supply in the neighborhood from which they had gone was still
sufficient. In some localities, however, a considerable deficiency is
reported as a result of such migrations.
THE CONTEST in the New York City Board of Education has
resulted in the re-election of Mr. Jasper as superintendent by a vote
of twelve to nine; and the political ring whose servant he is, is ju-
bilant. It is safe to say, however, that the triumph is but a tem-
porary one: for public opinion is arousing, and a public education
society has been formed for the purpose of carrying on the agita-
tion. The leading educators of the city, representative clergymen
and lawyers, and not a few of the would-be progressive public-
school teachers, met on Saturday last, and laid the foundations for
the new society. It will, if we understand aright, take up the task
of educating public opinion, and possibly will demand the appoint-
ment of a commission to investigate the schools and report a plan
or plans for their improvement. This would be an excellent step,
more especially as the present mayor enjoys the fullest confidence
of the community, and could be safely trusted to appoint a commis:
sion that would do its work thoroughly and well. An attempt
should also be made to displace the ringsters whose terms expire
this year with better men. Four of the seven whose terms expire in
December should on no account be re-appointed. The importance
of this is well understood, and already representative citizens, like
Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi and Col. R. T. Auchmuty, are suggested
for the vacancies.
The Springfield, Mass., Repudblzcan, in commenting on the condi-
tion of affairs, says that “the re-election of John Jasper as superin-
tendent of the public schools of New York was a foregone conclu-
sion. The Board of Education was as much on trial as the super-
intendent himself. The board exercises many of the prerogatives
which in other cities belong to the superintendent, and it could not
280
be expected that it would pass a vote morally condemning its own
acts. In the next place, the opposition, or, more properly speaking,
the true friends of education in New York, began their attack by
first selecting a candidate whose reputation, experience, and force
of character were not equal to the tremendous work of reforming
the present vicious system of instruction. The large results of the
investigation of Mr. Jasper’s records will appear next year, when he
will be confronted by a rival candidate as well as his own record.
The public has now been informed of the sad situation, and will
be prepared for serious work when the next two years close and
another election of superintendent takes place. When Mr. Kiddle
withdrew, and Mr. Jasper took the New York schools in hand, the
change was noticed at once. The teachers were all put in the po-
sition of wheels contributing to a nicety to the general movement,
and the product was a machine-made pupil. The perfect exami-
nation was very much on a par with Showman Forepaugh’s trick-
elephant. If one teacher undertook to feed the starved minds of
the little ones, then there was trouble with the machine, and the
teacher was subdued.” Every word of this is true, and is in full
accord with the position that Sczezce has taken in this important
matter. If the Public Education Society does its full duty, the sit-
uation will be materially altered before another election takes place.
THE LONDON PUBLISHERS and printers are getting more and
more excited over the provision of the Chace international copy-
right bill, which requires a foreign book copyrighted in this country
to be printed from types set up in the United States. The print-
ing and allied trades section of the London Chamber of Commerce
has sent a resolution to the Chamber of Commerce, asking the
government to obtain by diplomatic means the withdrawal of the
objectionable provision, and, if this is not done, demanding that a
similar law be passed in England. What the English publishers
and printers desire is an opportunity to make all books written or
compiled in Great Britain and sold in the American markets. That
is something that the Congress of the United States will never
agree to, if the passage of an international copyright act is post-
poned a quarter of a century. England may prevent books printed
in America from being sold in Great Britain, but will never suc-
ceed in dictating in what shape a law shall be passed by the Con-
gress of the United States until the former raises a generation of
abler diplomatists than she has lately sent abroad.
AN ITEM PUBLISHED in the Washington papers last Satur-
day, entitled ‘ The Army Ahead,’ in which it is represented that
competitive tests of the ‘indications’ work of the Signal Office, to
determine the relative merits of military and civilian officers in the
performance of this work, had been made, is likely to mislead any
one who has not read the description of the present condition of
affairs in the Signal Office, published in the last issue of Sczence.
The predictions for February were made by Lieutenant Dunwoody,
and those for March by Prof. Cleveland Abbe. The percentages
of verifications for each month have been computed by Professor
Marvin, who found the record as follows: Professor Abbe, indica-
tions 75.42 per cent, storm-signals 62.50 per cent, cold-wave sig-
nals 53.99 per cent; Lieutenant Dunwoody, indications 80.55 per
cent, storm-signals 89.29 per cent, cold-wave signals 86.11 per cent.
It should be remembered, that years ago, when the weather reports
became most popular and there were nothing but compliments for
its predictions, Professor Abbe, then in thorough practice, prepared
the indications for a long time. Of late he has been engaged in an
entirely different line of scientific work, and it was not to be ex-
pected that he would be as successful in preparing indications as
an officer who had lately been engaged in that service. General
Greely’s purpose in putting Professor Abbe upon this duty at all
was to train civilians for it in case Congress, as seemed more than
probable, should transfer the weather bureau to a civil department.
SCIENCE:
[Vor. XI. No. 280
THE CRENITIC HYPOTHESIS AND MOUNTAIN-
BUILDING.
THE facts derived from the study of metamorphic rocks and vol-
canic phenomena make it evident that there are two types of mo-
tion which take place in the deeper-buried materials of the earth’s
crust. One of these classes of movements occurs when volcanic
ejecta creep horizontally towards the vent, or when the materials
which afford the support of mountain-arches undergo massive
movements towards the base of such folds in the rocks. -In these
cases of horizontal movements we have translations of extensive
bodies of matter for considerable distances. The other class .of
movements taking place in the crust are in a vertical direction.
They are brought up in part by the action of water, and in part by
the action of igneous forces. The operation of these agents leads.
to a very extensive transfer of material in a vertical path, from the
deeper-buried to the more superficial strata. I propose in the fol-
lowing pages to consider the general effect of this upward move-
ment of matter upon mountain-building.
The simple inspection of most mountain-built districts will show
the observer that there has been a very extensive movement of ma-
terials from lower to higher levels in the crust in such areas. Tak-
ing a considerable surface of mountainous country, where by chance
the bed-rocks are exposed to view, we almost always find in
such regions numerous veins and dikes. Thus, in the anticlinal
districts of New England, especially where those portions of the
surface are exposed along the seashore, we are often able to ascer-
tain, that, on the path traversed by a straight line a mile in length,.
the addition to the material in the more superficial rocks has been
sufficient to produce a considerable extension of their area. In
some sections having this length, I have been able to prove that
the increase in the horizontal section, due to the introduction of the
materials derived from below, amounts to as much as from ten to:
twenty per cent of the original area; or, in other words, on a line a
mile in length, the dikes and veins occupy from one-tenth to one-
fifth of the distance. Besides the distinct intrusions of matter in
the form of dikes and veins, there have in many instances heen
large contributions to the more elevated parts of the crust through
the interstitial contributions of crystalline material. Thus in some
of our highly metamorphosed rocks, where the materials have as-
sumed the crystalline structure, a progressive growth of the horn-
blendic and other aggregations has been observed ; so that, besides.
the contributions of matter which we may reckon from a study of
dikes and veins, there is often a large but incomputable element of
crystalline growth, serving to extend the rocks, which is not readily
to be taken into account.
The immediate causes of this transfer of material from the
deeper-lying to the more superficial parts of the earth’s crust are
now tolerably well known. In large measure it is due to the pe-
culiar effect of temperature upon the water which was enclosed in the
sedimentary rocks at the time of their formation, or which may have
penetrated into them from the surface. The process of burial be-
neath sedimentary formed accumulations acts in all cases to lift
the temperature of all the rocks which are subjected to such cover-
ing. Where these rocks contain the waters of deposition, they are
likely in time to be brought to a high degree of heat. The tem-
perature to which they attain, and the pressure to which they are
subjected, enable them to dissolve a large share of the materials
with which they come in contact. Moving upward in the chan-
nels which may be opened by chance riftings of the superimposed
strata, these waters, deprived of their power to retain the materials
in solution by the loss of temperature in their upward journey, and
the relinquishment of pressure which comes about at the same
time, lay down deposits in the upper portions of the crust. In a
similar manner the descending pluvial waters obtain in the deeper
parts of the crust a store of dissolved materials, which, on their re-
ascent, is likewise deposited in the higher rocks. Thus the move-
ments of water below the drainage-level of the country inevitably
operate to bring from below and deposit in the upper parts of the
crust large amounts of mineral matter.
The nature of the forces which urge dike-stones from the deeper
to the more elevated parts of the crust are not so clear as those in-
volved in the formation of veins. It seems not unlikely that it is to:
JuNE 15, 1888. |
the expansive energy of the contained water that we owe, in part
at least, the upward movement of such materials. It is clear that
this is the case in true volcanic dikes, for all the phenomena of a
voleano indicate that the mainspring of its movements is to be
found in the vapor of water. The close likeness between ordinary
volcanic dikes and those which we cannot assuredly connect with
volcanoes leads us to the conclusion that all injections whatsoever
are most likely due to expanding vapors. Be this as it may, the
-effects of dikes is to clearly remove the material from a great depth,
and place it in more superficial rocks.
Although it is most likely that the crevices into which dikes tind
their way may occasionally owe their dislocations to the action of
‘contraction attending on certain metamorphic changes, probably
the greater part of such ruptures are due to strains connected with
‘changes in the attitudes of the rocks. The dike material thus acts
as wedges to fill in all the cavities accessible to the igneous rocks,
as far as they are formed. It is evident, that, where this process
is numerously repéated, a considerable horizontal extension of the
rocks is necessarily brought about. Thus in many parts of New
England, as is well shown along its extended shore-line, where the
coast reveals the crystalline rocks, from one-tenth to one-twentieth
of the superficial area is occupied by such dikes. Generally, where
the conditions have been such as to induce an injection of dikes,
there is a large amount of vein matter deposited in the same field
which still further serves to produce an extension ofarea. Thus in
the region about Eastport the gain in the superficial area due to
these two causes amounts to somewhere near three per cent or
five per cent of the superficies exposed on the present surface of
the rock.
Let us suppose that within any area of the earth’s surface
the conditions are such as to favor, through the forces which
lead to vein-building and those which operate to create dikes, the
vertical migration of matter from considerable depths towards the
‘surface. The result on the tensions in the crust at such a point
will evidently be such as to favor the construction of mountains.
‘The constant abstraction of material from the depths will lead to a
‘diminution in the bulk of the deposits of that lower level, and a
* parallel augmentation of the strata nearer thesurface. It may well
be that the differential contraction of the earth’s mass, being greater
at lower levels than at higher altitudes in the section, may create a
slight tendency to buckle into mountain-ridges in all parts of the
crust : but, wherever this general contraction is combined with the
‘crenitic action, we may expect to find a more complete develop-
ment of mountain-chains; and such points will be the seats of
folding, and they may by their wrinkles effect the necessary con-
traction of the crust, and thus prevent folding in other sections
where the contraction of the whole sphere alone tends to produce
wrinkling.
It seems to me that this hypothesis may, perhaps, explain the
fact that regions which have long been the seat of active sedimenta-
tion naturally become the sites of mountain-building. James Hall
and others have noted the fact, which so far has remained inexpli-
cable, that the first stage in mountain-building consists in the pro-
duction of extended sedimentary deposits of more than normal
thickness. During the deposition of these sediments the earth’s
‘crust appears to be down-borne by their weight. After the subsi-
dence some action sets up which leads finally to a certain elevation
of the area, and consequently to a development of erosive action.
As the deposits are worn away, the mountains rise higher and
higher, as the folding becomes more and more intense.
Although the generalization concerning the formation of moun-
tains which I have just stated has not been critically compared with
the many instances of mountain-structure, it seems of sufficiently
‘common occurrence to demand an explanation, and it very likely
will prove true for all large mountain systems whatsoever. Is it not
possible that we may account for the development of mountains
through these series of changes in the following manner? viz.,
where, as along a shore-line, sediments are thickly accumulated,
the first effect may well be the down-sinking of the region; then,
as the thickness of the stratified section increases, and the blanket
retaining the internal heat becomes deeper, the internal heat will be
greatly increased in the lower portions of the section. This will
induce an upward migration of the imprisoned waters, and conse-
SCIENCE.
281
quently, in time, a transfer of material to higher levels in the rocks.
The consequent expansion of these superjacent rocks will make
them tend to buckle. The superficial strata may not have received
any considerable infiltration or injection of the material, yet they
may be contorted by movements in the subjacent rocks which have
thus been increased in volume; in other words, an intensification
of deposition, if the sediments attain a great depth, may in time lead
to a reversal of the down-sinking movement and the construction
of a mountain system in what was previously a basin of sedimenta-
tion.
This explanation of mountain-folds will probably not at all ac-
count for the development of the basilar uplifts or tableland elevations
which are developed in connection with all or almost all important
chains. It may well be the fact that the expansion of the overlying
deposits through the upward deportation of matter is only one ele-
ment in determining the formation of mountains. It may in the
end turn out that mountains are the result of a tolerably compli-
cated series of causations, in which secular refrigeration of the
earth, the transfer of weight by the operations of erosion and dep-
osition, and the subterranean migrations of matter, all take a part.
It may indeed well be the fact that these internal movements of
material are due to more than one cause. I am, however, inclined
to believe that to this vertical movement of materials we owe in
many cases a share of the conditions which bring about the forma-
tion of mountainous dislocations. N.S. SHALER.
SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON.
A New Instrument for measuring the Direction and Velocity of Sub-
marine Currents. — Cabinets of Typical American Rocks, for Use
in Colleges and Universities. — Beautiful Specimens of New Jersey
Serpentine. — Ojibwa Pictographs in the West. — The Yellow-
Fever has disappeared from Florida, — Interesting Phenomenon at
Sea,
A Direction-Current Meter.
THE increasing commercial importance of our rivers and harbors,
and the recent large annual appropriations for their improvement,
have given a fresh impetus to the study of physical hydrography
and hydraulics. It has come to be pretty generally recognized that
no plans for the permanent improvement of tidal harbors, and such
streams as the Mississippi and its tributaries, can be perfected with-
out a thorough knowledge of the physical laws which underlie the
complex phenomena they present. The investigation of these laws
has stimulated observers and experimenters to the invention of
many new and improved devices for the precise measurement of
the various factors involved. One of the most interesting of these
devices is a direction-current meter, recently perfected by Mr. E.
S. Ritchie, the well-known maker of philosophical apparatus, of
Boston, and Mr. E. E. Haskell of the United States Coast and
Geodetic Survey. The characteristic feature of this meter is that
it gives simultaneous measures of the direction and speed of a cur-
rent. The direction is determined by means of a compass in all
respects similar to Mr. Ritchie’s trailing compass, which is mounted
in an elongated chamber, whose axis coincides with the axis of the
meter (See accompanying cut). A system of electro-magnets and
circuits connects the compass with a dial, which may be placed in
any convenient position, in such a manner that the observer may
make the dial indicate the same azimuth as the compass-needle.
The speed of the current is measured by a conical propeller-wheel,
whose flukes are curved in conformity with the requirements of
theory for maximum rotary effect of moving water, and whose
mass is as small as practicable with its requisite stability. The
revolutions of the wheel are counted automatically by an electro-
282
chronographic register. The magnetic azimuth of the meter can
be measured within a degree or two, and it is thought that current
speeds as low as two-tenths of a foot per second can be accurately
registered. This meter was used by the Coast and Geodetic Sur-
vey parties in their observations of currents in New York harbor
last summer, and proved highly effective.
Cabinets of Typical American Rocks.
About four years ago Major Powell concluded to make a collec-
tion of all the typical rocks of the United States, systematically and
scientifically arranged, so that a student of mineralogy, by compar-
ing any piece of rock he might find with a corresponding specimen
in the test collection, and studying the descriptions which would
accompany the latter, might determine the name, composition, and
proper classification of the unknown piece of rock he had in his
hand. When this collection of typical rocks was complete, Direc-
tor Powell proposed to have a number of duplicates of it made for
gratuitous distribution to the leading colleges and universities of
the country, for use in the classrooms as aids to the teaching and
study of mineralogy.
Instructions were therefore issued to all the field-parties of the
Geological Survey to collect and bring in specimens of the typical
rocks of the regions they visited, and at first the work went on
bravely. But what was everybody’s business soon became no-
body’s business, the work of collecting was neglected, and finally
little or nothing was done about it.
But Major Powell was unwilling to give the matter up, and about
a year ago he assigned Prof. J. S. Diller especially to the work, and
during the past few months it has been pushed forward with great
vigor. A complete set of specimens of the typical rocks of the
United States will be sent to the Cincinnati exhibition, and the
work of preparing the duplicates is progressing very rapidly. Each
set will consist of from one hundred and thirty to one hundred and
forty specimens, each four inches long, three inches wide, and one
inch thick ; and there will be a pamphlet to accompany the collec-
tion, giving a description of each specimen. Twohundred of these
sets are being prepared, and will be ready for distribution in about
a year to those colleges and universities which file with Director
Powell official application for them, and agree to make the use of
them for which they are designed.
It will be impossible, of course, in a brief notice like the present,
to give any thing like an adequate description of one of these col-
lections ; but a few outlines may convey to the reader some idea of
their scope and the plan upon which they are arranged. Each col-
lection will be divided into two departments. The first will be a
sort of alphabetic collection, intended to show the general condi-
tions of rocks, their structure, means of alterations, etc. For in-
stance : one specimen will show a stratified rock, and another an
unstratified one; a veined rock will be exhibited, also specimens of
rocks jointed in various ways, those containing ripple-marks, lime-
stone weathered by rain, spheroidal weathering in eruptive rocks
and shale, rocks changed by the crumpling of strata, etc. In the
second division the separate classes of rocks will be represented in
their varying forms. For instance: in showing the stratified rocks
not metamorphosed, the first specimen will be loose pebbles, or
simple masses not cemented together; the second will show these
simple masses partially cemented; and the third will show them
entirely cemented, like the mill-stone grit and Roxbury pudding-
stone. In the same way a specimen of loose sand will be shown,
such as is found upon the seashore; then sandstone like many of
those of the East, where the grains are cemented by oxide of iron;
then sandstone like the Potsdam, cemented by siliceous matter; and
finally sandstone where the cement is carbonate of lime. Many
different kinds and colors of sandstones will be shown, so as to en-
able the student to recognize by comparison any specimen of com-
mon sandstone he may have. In the same way the varieties
of the other classes of rocks will be illustrated, —the volcanic ;
the limestones of every texture, variety of color, and degree of
purity; infusorial earth and deposits
sum; specimens showing all these rocks metamorphosed ; sedi-
mentary rocks ; eruptive rocks; lavas of the same composition as
granite, that came to the surface; and specimens ranging from the
most acid granitic rock to the most basic.
SGIENEGE:
of hot springs; gyp--
[ Vo. XI. No. 280
From this brief outline it may be seen of what great practical value
each of these collections may be made, if used as Major Powell
designs that they should be. About forty institutions have already
made application for sets.
Fine Specimens of Serpentine.
Among the mineralogical specimens which the National Museum
will send with its collection to the Cincinnati exhibition will be
some pieces of serpentine which are more beautiful, probably, than
any previously exhibited in the United States. They were found in
the Gordon limestone-quarry, near Montville, Morris County, N.J.,
and were collected by Prof. W. S. Yates, who was sent to Mont-
ville by the National Museum last summer for the purpose. The
specimens are of a light yellowish-green color, differing entirely
from the pure green serpentine metamorphosed from olivine rocks,
which occurs in mountain-masses near both the Atlantic and
Pacific coasts.
Prof. G. P. Merrill, curator of rocks, etc., at the National Museum,
who has studied these specimens, has determined that the serpen-
tine has been derived from the alteration of pyroxene; in fact, in
nearly all the specimens the process of alteration is incomplete, the
serpentine surrounding the pyroxene, which remains unaltered in
the centre. A number of the specimens, ranging from a few inches to
a foot and a half in diameter, have been cut open, and the exposed
surface polished in the laboratory of the Geological Survey, and
these show the structure and bring out the colors very beautifully.
These specimens are found in comparatively small masses, —
from a few inches to a few feet in diameter, — irregularly distrib-
uted through the limestone, and the pyroxene from which it is
derived occurs only in such limestone as has been metamorphosed
by the mountain-building forces. The only other locality in which
similar serpentine has been found in the United States and de-
scribed is in the Leadville region, Colorado, where it was discovered
by Professor Emmons, and treated of in his recent report. A
peculiarity both of the commoner serpentine derived from erup-
tive rocks, and also of that metamorphosed from pyroxene, is the
frequent occurrence of slickenside, showing that the rocks have
been subjected to great pressure and movement.
Some of the New Jersey serpentine has already been utilized in
ornamentation.
Ojibwa Pictographs in the West.
“In the neighborhood of Odanah, on the Bad River,” says Capt-
Garrick Mallory of the Bureau of Ethnology, ina paper from which
extracts have already been made in Sczence, ‘‘is a large, vertical,
soft rock on which pictographs are still to be observed, although
nearly obliterated. The objects figured are chiefly birds and quad-
rupeds, many of them being repeated, and are all probably totemic.
Indeed, that is the direct evidence of an old Indian who saw some
of them made in his boyhood. He says that when Indian visitors
came by there, that being on a well-known trail, they would each
cut his totem on the rock to show to what clan he belonged, either
to establish his identity to the resident Indians who might happen:
to be present, or as a record of his passage. This is interesting in
comparison with a similar proceeding in New Mexico and Arizona.
“In my examinations at three reservations in Wisconsin, I dis-
covered some variants of the Medé ceremonies. The full cere-
monies of the Medé lodges, which they call ‘grand medicine,’ were
performed twice a year, —in the fall and in the spring. Those in
the spring were of a rejoicing character, to welcome the return of
the good spirits ; those in the fall were in lamentation for the de-
parture of the beneficent spirits. The drums were beaten four
days and nights before the dance, which lasted for a whole day.
After the dance twelve selected persons built a lodge, about the
centre of which were stones, which were heated, and dancing
went on around it until the stones were moistened by the sweat
of the performers. Singing, of course, was an accompaniment of
the dances. These ceremonies were performed by the body of the
people, and were independent of the initiations of the secret order.
With regard to the candidates who passed initiations, it was ob-
served that they always became stronger and better men; perhaps.
because those were the ones who had the requisite strength of
mind and body to endure the various ordeals, and to understand
the mysteries.
June 15, 1888.]
“The general remark may be made with regard to the Ojibwa
in the several localities where they are now found with the least
amount of civilized influence, that they in a marked degree live a
life of religious practices, and that their shamanistic societies have
a wonderful influence over their sociologic and religious character.
This is to so great an extent (before not appreciated), that, in my
opinion, a careful study of these people will develop facts corre-
sponding in interest with those which have recently surprised the
world as reported by Mr. Cushing among the Zuni. There is
probably no body of Indians in the United States whose inner life
can now be studied to greater advantage than the remoter bands
of the Ojibwa. With reference to the subject with which this
paper is more directly concerned, that is, pictographs in their vari-
ous modes of representation, it is certain that the understanding of
the mythology and religion of these people will furnish the best
interpretation to their ancient drawings and etchings.
“Tt is desirable to explain the mode of using the Medé and other
bark records of the Ojibwa. The devices are not only mnemonic,
but are also ideographic and descriptive. They are not merely in-
vented to express or memorize the subject, but are evolved there-
from. A general mode of explaining the so-called ‘ symbolism ’ is
by a suggestion that the charts of the order, or the song of a myth,
should be likened to the popular illustrated poems and songs lately
published in Harfer’s Magazine ; for instance, ‘ Sally in our Alley,’
where every stanza has an appropriate illustration. Now, suppose
that the text was obliterated forever, — indeed, the art of reading lost,
— the illustrations remaining, as also the memory to many persons
of the ballad : the illustrations, kept in order, would supply always
the order of the stanzas, and also the general subject-matter of each
particular stanza, and the latter would be a reminder of the words.
This is what the rolls of birch-bark do to the initiated Ojibwa, and
what Schoolcraft pretended, in some cases, to show, but what, for
actual understanding, requires the obtaining of the literation of the
actual songs and charges of the initiation ceremonies, or in other
instances the literation in the aboriginal language of the non-eso-
teric songs and stories.”
Yellow-Fever in Florida.
Dr. Jerome Cochran, of the State Board of Health of Alabama,
in a recent report has stated that the late epidemic of yellow-fever
in Florida was not introduced into the State by the usual trade
channels, but by smugglers. This confirms unofficial statements
received by Supervising Surgeon-General Hamilton, of the marine-
hospital service, several weeks ago. Dr. Cochran says that the
last case was discharged May 11, and the last death May 8, and
that there have been active precautions taken to prevent the re-
appearance of the disease.
Interesting Phenomenon.
Captain Friis, of the Norwegian steamship ‘ Viking,’ reports to
the Hydrographic Office that he observed at midnight, April 20,
between Chatham and Davis South Shoal, when the moon was in
its last quarter and about two hours above the horizon, two dark-
looking narrow strata of clouds; the upper one extending across
the face of the moon, the upper and lower limbs of the latter ap-
pearing above and below the cloud-stratum. The cloud was mov-
ing south-westerly. On the same line with the moon, and to the
westward of it, was a nearly circular luminous spot, larger than the
moon, which looked as the sun might when shining through a thick
mist. The second stratum of cloud was about halfway between
the first and the horizon. The phenomenon continued until the
moon set at two o’clock, when there shot upwards from the upper
limb fan-shaped rays of light.
HEALTH MATTERS.
Yellow-Fever.
IN a recent number of the AZedzcal Record is published a letter
from Dr. Charles Finlay of Havana, dated April 17, 1888, in which
he says, —
“Tn your issue of April 7 there is a short paragraph stating that
the microbe of yellow-fever described and cultivated by Dr. Do-
SCIENCE.
283
mingos Freire of Rio Janeiro ‘has gone the way of many other
specific germs,’ your grounds for this assertion being that Dr.
Gibier ‘ denies utterly the existence of the germ claimed to be spe-
cific.’ This conclusion has evidently been come to under the im-
pression that the Parisian bacteriologist just mentioned has had
full opportunities for verifying in Havana, within the brief space of
six weeks, the results previously obtained in Brazil by Dr. Freire,
in such a manner as to warrant his abrupt denial of what he had so
warmly approved while experimenting in Paris upon Dr. Freire’s
Brazilian cultures. That such has not been the case, I think you
will admit after hearing the particulars of that investigation.
“Dr. Gibier saw his first yellow-fever case on Nov. 16, at the
military hospital of this city. Between that date and Dec. 28, he
examined altogether five patients, and performed four autopsies.
He collected fresh blood from four of the patients, and urine from
three, besides the pieces of viscera and secretions from the cadav-
ers. In the urine of the first patient he thought at first that he
had recognized Dr. Freire’s micrococcus, but afterward changed
his mind, having ‘satisfied himself’ that what he had seen were
mere insignificant organic granulations. In the blood and secre-
tions, as also in the sections of viscera, he failed to discover any
micro-organisms, nor did he succeed in developing any colonies in
his numerous attempts with the same pathological material. One
of the tubes of agar-agar jelly inoculated by him with heart-
blood, and presented to a military colleague, did, however, develop
a yellow superficial colony, which Dr. Gibier attributed to an acci-
dental atmospheric contamination, although the constituents of the
colony turned out to be a tetragenous microbe quite distinct from
the plain atmospheric micrococcus with which he had thought it
could be identified.
“This scanty material, collected at a time when yellow-fever was
sporadic in Havana, almost the only cases signalled being those
present at the military hospital, constitutes the sole foundation for
the abrupt retractation of Dr. Gibier from his former enthusiastic
advocacy of Dr. Freire’s views ; never considering that the sporadic
and epidemic forms of the disease might not be identical, any more
than the equivalent forms of cholera have turned out to be, not-
withstanding their clinical resemblance. Other observers had pre-
viously noticed that the same yellow-fever products which, in their
hands, had given colonies when collected from epidemic cases,
failed to do so with the sporadic. In collecting blood from yellow-
fever patients, Dr. Gibier was noticed to disinfect the skin with
bichloride solution, but took no pains to remove any excess of the
germicide which might remain and sterilize the drop of blood as it
would ooze out on the surface. Neither does it appear that he
varied his culture-media as to acidity, alkalinity, etc., nor that he
kept his tubes at a uniform summer temperature. Yet, in spite of
such obvious deficiencies, Dr. Gibier does not hesitate to condemn
as erroneous the results of Dr. Freire’s patient and laborious inves-
tigations, and likewise all others that might claim to have obtained
successful cultures from similar yellow-fever products.
“Dr. Gibier had brought over some cultures proceeding from
Dr. Freire’s own tubes, inoculated at Rio Janeiro ; and shortly after
his arrival in Havana, full of faith in their prophylactic virtue, he
inoculated himself, and thought he had gone through the phenom-
ena of an experimental attack of yellow-fever. In this, I fancied at
the time, and he now acknowledges, that he was mistaken; but
after examining my own cultures from yellow-fever blood and urine,
obtained by me last summer in Havana, and cultivated in sub-acid
agar-agar jelly, he has repeatedly declared that both macroscopi-
cally and microscopically they were identical to Dr. Freire’s. This
coincidence, one would think, should have checked his precipitancy,
and induced him, at any rate, to wait until the epidemic season be-
fore formulating his conclusions.
“The only excuse, if soit can be called, for such haste in a prac-
tised bacteriologist, must lie in his unacquaintance with the disease,
and in his anxiety to proclaim a new bacillus of his own, isolated
from the intestinal contents of yellow-fever cadavers, and which he
. believes better entitled than its fellow claimants to be considered
as the true yellow-fever germ.
“My object in bringing forward these facts is to guard the
American medical public against hasty deductions, and to show
that Dr. Gibier’s researches have not in any way altered the previ-
284
Ous state of the question, except in so far that he has added an-
other microbe to the list of the possible specific germs of the dis-
ease.”
This would seem to make it very doubtful whether Dr. Gibier of
Paris has added any thing to our knowledge of the cause of yellow-
fever.
ELECTRICAL SCIENCE.
Novel Current-Registering Instrument.
A NEw instrument for measuring the quantity of current sup-
plied to consumers has been recently brought out by Prof. Elihu
Thomson, although it seems probable that the principle on which
it works was originally due to Tavener. Two bulbs are connected
by a U-shaped tube, and the whole is partly filled with liquid; al-
cohol, for instance. The arrangement is pivoted, so that, if more
of the liquid is forced into one of the bulbs, the difference of weight
will cant the apparatus, and its movement is communicated through
a ratchet to the hands of a registering-dial. To make this measure
the current, two spirals of wire are introduced into the liquid, one
in each bulb. If we suppose the instrument has been canted, the
spiral in the lower bulb has its circuit made, while that of the upper
spiralis broken. The consequence is, that the liquid in the lower bulb
is heated, its vapor-tension increases, and part of it is driven through
the U-tube. The section of the latter is very small, so that the liquid
passes slowly ;=but®in a time, depending upon this section and on the
rate of heating, the upper bulb becomes the heavier, and the apparatus
cants, breaking the circuit of the spiral that was previously made,
and making the other. By a suitable registering system the read-
ings may be made proportional to the current which is flowing.
The current, then, is measured by its heating effect, and the instru-
ment may be used for both direct and alternating currents. Inthe
latter case the readings would be fairly correct if lamps only were
used ; but, if motors were to be run, the readings would not be
proportional to the power consumed. This objection holds with all
of the instruments that have yet been proposed for the measure-
ment of the consumption of alternating currents.
THE SHORT SERIES ELECTRIC RAILWAY SysTemM.— The
Short system of electric traction differs from those ordinarily used in
that the current is distributed in series, the same current passing
through all of the cars on the line. Both overhead and conduit
wires are used. In the latter case the wires are contained in an
iron conduit, from which they are insulated by porcelain brackets.
The overhead wires are supported from iron bracket-poles that
arch gracefully over the track. The motors and generators used
are of the Brush system. The motor is usually in a front com-
partment, and is geared to the front car-axle. There is a pinion
on the motor-shaft, a gear on the axle, and an intermediate gear
and pinion that further reduces the number of revolutions. The
gears are made of steel, the pinions of rawhide held between steel
plates, making an efficient and noiseless transmitting system. The
front compartment (in which the driver stands), with the motor
and front truck, can be made separately, and attached to any ordi-
nary car by removing the front platform. Taken altogether, the
system seems a simple and efficient one.
AN IMPROVEMENT IN SECONDARY BATTERIES.— A seem-
ingly slight improvement in the construction of secondary batteries,
and yet one that in certain cases will be of considerable value, has
recently been patented by Mr. J. S. Sellon. A great difficulty and
expense in the use of accumulators arises from the fact that the
plates cannot be separately and easily removed. Usually, if we
wish to connect a number of cells in series, all of the positve plates
in each cell are connected together by lead strips, which are taken
to similar strips connecting the negative plates of the next cell.
The terminals of each plate are burned to the connecting-strip ;
and when one of the plates gives out, and we wish to renew it, we
must take out the complete set of plates, cut off the one we wish to
renew, and solder on another. Besides being difficult, this takes a
good deal of time, and increases the cost of maintenance of the
battery ; it is obvious, too, that it interrupts its use. Mr. Sellon’s
idea is to have plates made in pairs, a positive and negative, so con-
nected that when one of them is in one cell the other will be in an-
other. The first and last cells have one set of single plates con-
SCIENECE:
[Vor XI. No: 280
nected with the terminals of the external circuit. The advantages
of this arrangement are, that plates can be removed and renewed
without interfering with the action of the battery, and much more
easily than if one of anumber of connected plates had to beremoved.
Any improvement in storage-batteriés is important at this time, when
its advantages, especially for tramway-work, hang in the balance.
A slight increase in efficiency will cause their adoption for street-
car work, and the invention of Mr. Sellon is in the right direction.
INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE ON THE MAGNETIZATION OF
TRON. — M. C. Ledeboer has made some interesting experiments
on the magnetic properties of iron at high temperatures. Many
experiments have been made on the same subject ; and it has been
found that up to three or four hundred degrees there is no great
change in the magnetic permeability of iron, while at a red heat its
Magnetic properties almost entirely disappear. The necessary
temperature of the iron bar used in the experiment was obtained
by a spiral of platinum wire wrapped around it, separated from it
by a layer of mica. Between the platinum and the iron was a
small thermo-electric couple, which was used to measure the tem-
perature of the bar. A heavy electric current sent through the
platinum spiral could be regulated to give any desired temperature.
The bar used was thick as compared with its length, which fact
prevented any useful results as to residual magnetism being ob-
tained. M. Ledeboer arrives at the following results : up to a tem-
perature of about 680° the magnetic permeability remains nearly
constant, after 680° the diminution is very rapid, and the iron ceases
to be magnetic at 760°. This range of temperature is about that
in which several curious phenomena occur, — an abrupt change in
the specific heat, a change in the tortional co-efficient, etc.; and it
is probable that a more complete study of iron in this region of
temperature will help us to connect phenomena which seem now so
different in character.
THE MORDEY ALTERNATING-CURRENT DyNAMO. — This
dynamo has revolving magnets and a fixed armature. The latter
consists of a number of coils of narrow copper ribbon wound on
insulating-cores: they are fixed to project from the inner circum-
ference of a metal ring which is fastened firmly to the bed-plate
of the dynamo, The magnet consists of a short iron core, whose
axis is the axle of the machine, and which is wound with wire sup-
plied with current from the small dynamo used as an exciter.
From each end of the magnet extend arms, which are bent until
they are opposite one another, leaving only enough space between
for the flat coils of the armature to pass. We thus have a number
of poles of the same sign, opposite to which are poles of the op-
posite sign, while between the poles are vacant spaces. Theaction
of the machine is now easily understood: as the magnet revolves,
the armature coils are first opposite pole-pieces, where a number
of lines of force pass through them; then in vacant spaces, where
there are no lines of force. The variation, of course, produces the
electro-motive force of the machine.
INCANDESCENT LAMPS IN EXPLOSIVE GASES. — Lieutenant
Hutchins, U.S.N., has been experimenting on the effect of break-
ing incandescent lamps in explosive gases. The filament of the
lamp breaks almost immediately that the glass is broken, and as
soon as it breaks, of course, and cools down, the danger is over.
The question was whether the breaking and cooling were so rapid
that the gases would not be brought to a sufficiently high tempera-
ture to explode. With a Swan 16-candle power lamp, ina mixture
of hydrogen and oxygen, the gas exploded immediately the bulb
was pierced: the filament was not broken. The same result was
obtained with marsh-gas. A Maxim lamp was tried in a mixture
of coal-gas and air, with a similar result. Lieutenant Hutchins
concludes, that, where explosive gases are allowed to collect on
board ship, incandescent electric lights are dangerous.
BOOK-REVIEWS.
A Text-Book of Biology.
delphia, Blakiston. $4.
By J. R. AINSWORTH Davis. Phila-
THE number of text-books of biology which have been published
within recent years has been, it would seem, sufficiently great to
meet all reasonable demands ; and yet, after perusing this new one
JUNE 15, 1888.]
by Mr. Davis, we are satisfied that it supplies deficiencies which
exist in all the text-books which have up to this time appeared.
While the others have been largely practical, this one is more theo-
retical, and, as is indicated on the titlepage, is especially designed
to prepare students for their scientific examinations. This design is
further elaborated in an appendix, which contains a full bibliog-
raphy of the works referred to in the text, a series of examination-
questions, and an index-glossary. The volume is divided into two
parts, — a botanical and a zodlogical, — each of which deals with a
number of types morphologically and physiologically, then briefly
draws out the points of comparison between them, and ends with
an outline of classification.
In Part I., which treats of vegetable morphology and physiology,
fungi are first considered ; Saccharomyces, Bacteria, Mucor mitce-
do,and Penzcellium glaucum being selected as types. Of Ale,
the author describes Protococcus pluvial’s, Spirogyra, Fucus,
Chara, and Netella. Funarta and Polytrichum are selected as
representing the mosses: Pferzs aguzlena and Nephrodium filix-
mas, the ferns; Pzzus, the gymnosperms. The consideration of the
angiosperms follows.
In Part II., which is devoted to animal morphology and physiol-
ogy, the Protozoa are first dealt with through their representatives
the Ame@ba and Vorticella. The Hydra represents Calenterata ;
Destoma and Lumbricus, Vermes; Astacus, Arthropoda, Ano-
donta and Unio, and Helix, Mollusca; Rana, Amphibia ; Colum-
ba livia, Aves ; Lepus cuntculus, Mammalia.
No less than one hundred and fifty-eight well-executed illustra-
tions add to the attractiveness of the book, as well as elucidate the
text. We recommend the work not only to those for whom it was
originally designed, but to all students and readers who desire to
obtain within a small compass the most recent reliable information
on the subjects of vegetable and animal morphology and physiol-
ogy.
Ethics of Boxing and Manly Sport.
Boston, Ticknor. $1.50.
THE main purpose of this book, as stated by its author, is to
bring into consideration the high value, moral and intellectual as
well as physical, of those exercises that develop healthy constitu-
tions, cheerful minds, manly self-confidence, and appreciation of
the beauties of nature and natural’enjoyment. He further says,
that so long as large numbers of our young people of both sexes
are narrow-chested, thin-limbed, their muscles growing soft as their
fat grows hard, timid in the face of danger, and ignorant of the
great and varied exercises that are as needful to the strong body as
letters to the informed mind, such books as this need no excuse for
their publication.
The contents of the volume are subdivided into four sections: 1.
The ethics and evolution of boxing; 2. The training of athletes
tested by every-day life; 3. Ancient Irish athletic games, exercises,
and weapons; 4. Canoeing sketches. Under the first the author
discusses the question whether boxing has a real value. He be-
lieves that it has, and in support of his belief quotes the opinions of
Sir Robert Peel, Mr. Evelyn Denison, Lord Althorp, Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes, and others. Lord Althorp, the minister who led
the British Commons when the Reform Bill was passed, was evi-
dently an enthusiast on this subject. He said that his conviction
of the advantages of pugilism was so strong that he had seriously
been considering whether it was not a duty that he owed to the
public to attend every prize-fight which took place, and thus to en-
courage the noble science to the extent of his power. In speaking
of the improvement in modern boxing, the author believes that the
English practice of prize-fighting with bare hands and under im-
proper rules has brought boxing into disrepute. He praises Sulli-
van for having made a manly effort to establish the practice not
only of sparring, but of fighting, with large gloves, and for insisting
that contests should be ruled by three-minute rounds of fair box-
ing. The Grecian athletes, their training and skill, and the gladia-
tors of Rome, are referred to and described. Feudalism suppressed
popular athletic exercises. With the advent of chivalry, the art of
boxing waned and became unfashionable. With the advance of
feudalism came the growth of iron armor, until at last a fighting
man resembled an armadillo: he was iron-clad from top to toe.
By JOHN BOYLE O REILLY.
Tae
SCPSNGE:
285
The first modern champion boxer was James Figg, who was con-
sidered, in 1729, as the national champion. The first rules for the
government of ‘ the ring’ were prepared by Broughton, and were in
force from 1743 to 1838.
In discussing the training of athletes as tested by every-day life,
the author considers the question from two different standpoints,
— that of the professional athlete, and that of the average person
who wants to get into lasting ‘good condition.’ He thinks that
the mass of those who live in cities, and whose occupations involve
little manual or physical exercise, allow their bodies, at an early age
of manhood, to sink out of all trained and athletic strength and
shapeliness. He says that it is only necessary to visit a Turkish
bath to find abundant evidence of the muscular collapse which has
overtaken the modern city-dweller, — bodies ‘developed’ every-
where in the wrong direction, arms like pipe-stems, while the beau-
tiful muscles of the shoulders and back are smothered in layers of
vile fat, and spindle thighs and straight calves weakly support bel-
lies like Bacchus. Excellent hints are given on training and the
ways of promoting good health. A large number of illustrations
make the volume very attractive, and accounts of canoeing on the
Connecticut, Delaware, and Susquehanna Rivers add to the inter-
est which its perusal has excited. The book, taken as a whole, is
unique, and treats of questions which have seldom been so well
and so thoroughly handled.
Medical Nursing: Lectures delivered in the Royal Infirmary,
Glasgow. By J. WALLACE ANDERSON, M.D. 3d ed. Glas-
gow, James Maclehose & Sons. 16%. $1.
FOR many years the nurses at this Royal Infirmary of Glasgow
have been practicaliy trained in the duties pertaining to their pro-
fession. About ten years ago the managers resolved that a course
of systematic lectures on nursing should be added to the practical
training; and Dr. Anderson was selected to deliver the medical lec-
tures, which are contained in the volume beforeus. In ten lectures
the author has succeeded in condensing a vast amount of informa-
tion. Modern nursing dates from the year 1836, when Theodore
Fliedner, a German-Protestant clergyman, established the Deacon-
ess Institution at Kaiserwerth on the Rhine. There, under the super-
intendence of himself and his wife, a training-school for female nurses
was begun. The labors of Florence Nightingale, with her staff of
thirty-seven nurses, in the Crimea, in 1854, are too well-known to
need more than a reference. It was from such work as this of
Fliedner and Florence Nightingale that all the training-schools for
nurses have come. There is now hardly a hospital in the United
States that has not such a school in connection with it. The lec-
tures of Dr. Anderson deal with subjects which are essential for
every nurse to know: how to obtain and record a patient’s tem-
perature, pulse, and respiration; how to prepare food for the inva-
lid so as to make it both nutritious and palatable ; how to prevent
bed-sores ; how to prepare fomentations and poultices. These and
many other practical lessons are thoroughly taught in this little
volume. In an appendix the author gives valuable recipes for the
preparation of food for the sick, and a list of poisons with their an-
tidotes. One feature of the book which we regard as of consider-
able worth is a list of questions at the end of each lecture. These
questions bring out the salient points of the lectures, and direct
attention to the most important subjects for study. There have
been published other and more pretentious text-books on nursing,
but we know of none that in so compact a form contains so many
essentials as ‘ Medical Nursing.’
Bradley's Atlas of the World, for Commerczal and Library Refer-
ence. Philadelphia, WILLIAM M. BRADLEY & BROTHER,
SS 7AM 256
THIs atlas has received high praise from Dr. McCosh, Professor
Libbey, Dr. Vincent, General Hazen, and others. The intention of the
work is to provide a complete American and foreign atlas, full and de-
tailed, for both hemispheres. Following a somewhat novel plan for
an American atlas, the eastern hemisphere is given first. But it is
the belief of the publishers that every portion of the world is equally
treated. The maps contain the results of recent investigations, so
far as this is possible in any atlas of this size, and each map is ac-
companied with an isometric index. By means of this index the
286
position of all places indicated on the maps may be readily found.
For American towns the population is given with the index. For
the eastern hemisphere a separate population table is given.
Throughout the work it has been a fixed aim to render the maps
easily legible, and not tiresome to the eye in consultation.
NOTES AND NEWS.
THE committee appointed by the New Jersey Assembly of the
Agassiz Association at its semi-annual meeting, held in the chapel
of Rutgers College, May 12, to arrange for a seaside assembly
during the coming summer, organized itself by the election of Rev.
L. H. Lighthipe, Woodbridge, N.J., as chairman, and Prof. P. T.
Austen of Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N.J., as secretary.
The plan as sketched out by the committee is somewhat as fol-
lows. The assembly is to be known as the ‘ Agassiz Seaside As-
sembly.’ Its membership is to consist of such persons as shall send
their names to the secretary before the opening of the assembly, or
such as shall be elected members according to by-laws adopted
afterward. It is proposed to make it a permanent organization ;
the membership fee to be one dollar per year, payable at the open-
ing of each annual assembly. Membership badges and tickets will
be provided for all who send in their names to the secretary. It is
proposed to hold a six-days’ session this year, at Asbury Park,
* N. J., provided suitable accommodations can be secured at that
place in the month of August. The subjects to be discussed this
year will be principally botany and entomology, under the direction
of such practical specialists as cari be secured. The work is to
include several field-day excursions with experienced guides. Cir-
culars setting forth these facts will be sent to all chapters within a
radius of one hundred miles, and to any other chapters which may
desire them. Chapters failing to receive them, or any persons de-
siring copies, can obtain them by addressing the secretary, Prof.
P. T. Austen, Rutgers College, New Brunswick, N.J. Members
will be entitled to free admission to all lectures and excursions,
and will receive circulars before the opening of the assembly, giving
full particulars as to time, place, railroad-trains, boarding accom-
modations, programme of exercises, etc. Membership is not
limited to members of the Agassiz Association. It is extremely
desirable that names be sent in as soon as possible, that the com-
mittee may know how far they may venture in the matter of ex-
penses. All members of the Agassiz Association are cordially in-
vited to co-operate with the committee in making the Seaside
Assembly a success.
— According to the Publishers’ Weekly, a gypsy-lore society
has just been formed. The president is Mr. C. G. Leland; the
vice-president, Mr. H. T. Crofton; and the members already in-
clude the Archduke Joseph of Hungary, Sir Richard Burton, M.
Paul Bataillard, Dr. Alexander Paspati, and several more English
and continental students of Romany. The society will publish a
quarterly journal, the first part of which will appear on July 1, and
copies of which will be strictly confined to members. The honor-
ary secretary is Mr. David MacRitchie, 4 Archibald Place, Edin-
burgh.
— At a late meeting of the mineralogical branch of the New
York Academy of Sciences, Mr. George F. Kunz described some re-
markably complicated twin diamonds which have proved to be un-
usually hard. Some of these will be sent to Professor Rowland of
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, for use in ruling the diffusion
gratings he is making, and using in mapping the spectrum of the
sun,
—A new slang dictionary is announced by the Pudlzshers’
Weekly, which will aim at exceptional completeness by enlisting
the co-operation of specialists in different departments. The
editors-in-chief are Prof. Albert Barrére of Woolwich, author of
‘ Argot and Slang,’ and Mr. Charles G. Leland (Hans Breitmann) ;
and among the contributors are the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Patrick
Colquhoun, Major Arthur Griffiths, Dr. Charles Mackay, Mr. John
Hollingshead, Rev. J. W. Horsley, and Prof. Douglas B. W. Saden.
The character of the work may be judged from its sub-title: ‘A
Dictionary of Unconventional Phraseology, embracing English,
American, and Colonial Slang; Tinker’s, Yiddish, Pidgin, and
SCIENCE.
[Vou. XI. No, 280
Anglo-Indian Slang; Quaint Expressions, Vulgarisms — their
Origin, Meaning, and Application.’ It will be issued in two vol-
umes, to subscribers only. Applications for the work should be
addressed to G. May, care of Messrs. Whittaker & Co., 2 White
Hart Street, Paternoster Square, London.
—Professor Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,
has asked for an appropriation of $27,050 for the expenses of the
system of international exchanges between the United States and
foreign countries under the direction of the Smithsonian Institution,
instead of the $15,000 previously estimated for. In his letter of ex-
planation he says that there is now an amount of matter (virtually
presents to the United States) which could be secured if the insti-
tution had the larger sum at its disposal.
— The British Parliamentary Currency Commission will report in
favor of the remonitization of silver. It proposes a convention of
the leading commercial nations of the world to agree upon a system
of weights and coinage under which gold and silver shall be ex-
changed in international transactions. If such an agreement could
be reached, it would probably be a blessing to the world. No one
nation can remonitize silver without the co operation of others, but
the whole commercial world can do it.
— The feature of the meeting of the British Royal Society last
week was an exhibition by Mr. Henry Burns of a class of nests of
live ants. These were so arranged that all the elaborate internal
economy of the insects could be fully observed. A cable despatch
says that “in one cell was the queen, with servants attending upon
her. In another were the aphides, or cows, watchfully herded by
their keepers; and a party of workers were engaged in walling up
an intruding queen which had been placed in the nest that morning.
The state of ant civilization was so remarkably high, that nobody
would have been much surprised at a party of scientific ants in
spectacles taking notes on the Royal Society.”
— The Nicaragua Canal surveying party, under Civil Engineer
Menocal, have discovered that a new route, which they call ‘ the
upper one,’ is much more favorable for the line of the canal than
the one recommended in 1885. By this new route it is said that
the total length of the excavation from Ochoa to Greytown will
not exceed nineteen miles, and will consist of several short embank-
ments instead of one long one. The cost, it is said, will be greatly
reduced, and the engineering difficulties much less.
— A new chemical process of producing aluminium, invented by
Professor Curt Netto of Dresden, is thus described : “ The ore used
is cryolite, a double fluoride of aluminium and sodium, ground to a
fine powder, and fluxed with common salt. The ore is then melted
in a reverberatory furnace, and when quite liquid is run into a ladle.
When in this condition, ingots of solid sodium are forced to the
bottom of the ladle, and there held until they become volatilized.
The gaseous sodium rising through the molten cryolite displaces a
part of the aluminium, which collects in a metallic form at the bot-
tom of the ladle. The greater part of the slag is then skimmed off,
and the remainder poured into an iron crucible to cool. When the
mass is turned out, a solid ingot of aluminium is found at the bot-
tom.”
— An item of interest in connection with the proposed introduc-
tion of ‘ World-English ' is going the rounds of the press, crediting
President Eliot of Harvard College with having said, “I sat down
to dinner one stormy night, in a Swiss inn, with sixteen people.
Six different nationalities were represented by these sixteen people,
and the only language that they could all speak was English. One
may travel now, as I have just travelled, through southern Spain,
through northern Africa, through Greece and Constantinople, and
back by Vienna, and the more usual routes, with nothing but
English. I do not mean to say that you may not occasionally
feel the need of some French words, but you can travel comfort-
ably through all these countries with no language but English.
That, I am sure, could not have been said twenty-five years ago.
The spread of the language within that time for purposes of com-
merce is most noticeable, as is also the increased knowledge of the
language and literature among educated people on the continent of
Europe.”
JUNE 15, 1888. ]
— The intention with which The Unzversal Review (London,
Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co.; New York, International News
Co.) has been founded is twofold, —that of supplying a journal
of international character, and of making one interesting to all
classes of readers. The services have been obtained of some of the
best writers of France, Germany, and America, as well as those of
England. Special correspondents have been established in the chief
cities of the Continent, America, and the Colonies, who will supply
information as to the principal political, social, intellectual, and ar-
tistic movements therein. A considerable portion of its space will
be devoted to three matters which at present have almost entirely
disappeared from review literature, —the arts of painting, fiction,
and the drama. On all of these there are promised not only numer-
ous articles, but examples of the best original work which is being
done at the present time. Thus 7%e Revzew will publish reproduc-
tions of fine pictures and drawings, ancient and modern. It will also
differ from its serious contemporaries by including the subject of
sport. The pages will be open to duly qualified correspondents,
in the belief that there are many men, whose opinions are of value,
who will welcome the opportunity of expressing their views on
questions of the day in a manner at once less lengthy and less for-
mal than is necessitated by a review article, and in a more perma-
nent form than is afforded by the columns of a newspaper. As to
the more serious political, religious, scientific, and scholarly matters,
which must form the backbone of any important review, Ze Pe-
view will take no partisan view, and will admit opinions of every
kind which seem to be founded upon adequate knowledge.
Charles Scribner’s Sons have published, in connection with the rail-
way articles appearing in Scrzbner’s Magazene, a pretty lithographed
folder, entitled ‘ Twenty Questions and Answers about Railways.’
The information contained is interesting, and has been obtained
from well-known authorities. It can be obtained by enclosing
stamp to the publishers. Two articles are promised in 7he
Popular Science Monthly for July that are worthy of attention.
They are an illustrated paper on ‘Safety in House-Drainage,’ by
William E. Hoyt, S.B., in which the belief that plumbing-fixtures
in our houses are inevitable sources of danger is controverted, and
ways are shown for making them safe; and the concluding essay
of the series on ‘Darwinism and the Christian Faith.’ ——D.
Appleton & Co. have just gotten out the July number of
their Lducatzonal Notes. This is profusely illustrated, and gives
a most tempting summary of several of their newer educational
books. H. Semler’s ‘Die Tropische Agricultur,’ a handbook
for the agriculturist and merchant, issued in parts by the Hins-
torff’sche Hofbuchhandlung, Wismar, Mecklenburg, has just been
completed. The work is of especial importance to those who give
their attention to the cultivation of tropical products in the United
States, such as oranges, lemons, cotton, maize, tobacco, sugar, etc.
The International News Company of New York are the American
agents for the work, which is complete in three large volumes.
Messrs. Dodd, Mead, & Co., New York, have issued a new
catalogue of rare and choice books, which they offer at discounts in
view of the approaching summer season. Among them we note
a copy of the first printed edition of ‘ Euclid,’ the first book printed
with woodcut diagrams. C. N. Caspar, Milwaukee, Wis., an-
nounces to appear in June, Linderfelt’s ‘ English Volapiik Diction-
ary.’ Messrs. E. & F. N. Spon, New York, have just published
“A System of Easy Lettering,’ by J. H. Cromwell. The author
divides any surface he may wish to letter into squares (or parallelo-
grams, as the case may be) in pencil-lines ; forms the required let-
ters in ink or paint, and according to the style chosen ; then erases
the pencil-lines, and the lettering is complete.
— Chauncey Smith says the magnitude of the commercial in-
terests which have been called into being by physical discoveries
and the devlopment of new ideas, indicates, that if the progress of
the past few years is to continue, if new achievements are to rival
those of the past, it must be by a higher education and training,
not of a few men, but of the many, so that no germ of talent shall
miss its opportunity for development and its chance for increasing
the powers and resources of man.
— The Canadians themselves are ignorant of most of the vast
mineral riches their country contains, and comparatively indifferent
SCIENCE
287
to what they do know, so that the revelations of a recent parliamen-
tary committee report on the great Mackenzie basin are as unex-
pected there as here, according to the Engzneering and Mining
Fournal. Of the minerals of this vast region, little is known.
Nothing is known of the minerals which may exist east of the Mac-
kenzie River and north of the Great Slave Lake. Enough is known
of the western affluents of the Mackenzie, the committee thinks, to-
show that at the head waters of the Peace, Liard, and Peel Rivers-
there are from 150,000 to 200,000 square miles which may be con-
sidered auriferous ; while west of the Rocky Mountains there is a
metalliferous area, principally of gold-yielding rocks, 1,300 miles.
long and from 400 to 500 miles broad. Gold has been found on
the west shore of Hudson Bay, silver on the Upper Liard and.
Peace Rivers, and copper on the Copper Mine River. Iron, graph-
ite, ochre, brick and pottery clays, mica, gypsum, lime, sand-
stone, and asphaltum are also known to exist in the region. Salt.
is found in crystals and in saline springs. The evidence submitted:
to the committee points, in the language of the report, to the exist-
ence, in the Athabasca and Mackenzie valleys, of the most exten
sive petroleum-feld in America, if not in the world. The com—
mittee suggests that 40,000 square miles of this territory be for the
present reserved from sale, as it is probable that in the near future-
petroleum will rank among the chief assets of the Dominion. The
committee bounds the reserved lands as follows: easterly by a line
drawn due north from the foot of the Cascade Rapids on Clear-
water River to the south shore of Athabasca Lake; northerly by
the said lake-shore and the Quatre Fourche and Peace Rivers ;:
westerly by Peace River and a straight line from Peace River land-
ing to the western extremity of Lesser Slave Lake; and southerly
by said lake, and the river discharging it, to Athabasca River andi
Clearwater River as far up as the source.
— The American Engineer states that at the foundery and ma—
chine-shop of Albert Russell & Sons, Newburyport, Mass., a loco-
motive engine is being made unlike any before. It is designed to.
run on the new ‘bicycle railway,’ which is the invention of Hon. E.
Moody Boynton of West Newbury. The tracks are not both laid
on the ground, as commonly. One is laid on the ground, and the:
other is laid on the under side of a framework which is above and
directly over the lower track. The engine and cars have wheels.
on the bottom, and double trucks above. In this way the whole is.
steadied on the rail, and cannot fall over nor off the track. It is.
expected that great speed will be attained on account of the com-
parative lightness of the train, and also because of the loss of fric-
tion. The idea is patented in every country in Europe as well as.
in the United States and other nations of the western hemisphere.
— For many years past the Old Colony Steamboat Company bave-
maintained, at a large expense, an oil lantern on the summit of the
beacon on the southern point of Goat Island, Newport. In very
bad weather ic has been impossible for the man charged with:
lighting this lamp to effect a landing at this point, and therefore
when the light was most needed it was frequently absent. Upon
the summit of the beacon there has been placed a duplex socket:
carrying a 32-candle power lamp, supplied by the Sawyer-Man.
Company. This socket is so arranged that but one lamp of the:
pair burns at a time, the second lamp switching in automatically:
on the failure of the first. A cable one thousand two hundred feet
in length is carried to the mainland. The end of this cable is con—
nected with the distributing point of the torpedo station electric-
lighting plant. The whole installation was supplied by the Oko--
nite Company, material and work being subjected to the supervision.
and inspection of the officer commanding the torpedo station,
Commander C. F. Goodrich, United States Navy, the Old Colony
Steamboat Company paying all the bills. The beacon was first
lighted for experiment on Friday night, June 1. This preliminary
test proving satisfactory, the operation of the light was definitely
installed on Saturday night. The details of the installation are so:
complete, and the insulation of wires so high, that failure of the:
lamp, at least for a long time to come, may be considered as a re-
mote contingency.
— The Hydrographic Office has in preparation a report relative-
to the storm that caused such great damage off the coast about the-
288
middle of March, commonly known ashore as the ‘New York
blizzard.’ Its territic violence at sea, however, and the wide area
which it covered, make it one of the most notable storms of the
century in the North Atlantic. Special efforts are being made to
collect all the data possible from vessels north of the 2oth parallel
and west of the 50th meridian at any time from the 11th to the
15th of March, and the co-operation of masters of vessels and
foreign hydrographic offices has been earnestly requested. The
data at hand are already very complete for the greater portion of
the area in question, but additional information is specially desired
from vessels about and to the south-eastward of the Bermudas at
any time during the dates mentioned above, and, indeed, from ves-
‘sels anywhere within the limits already stated.
— The logs from the great raft abandoned off the coast of New
England a few months ago have drifted in a direction about east
by south, and the greater part of them are now in the region be-
tween the 33d and 38th parallels and the 30th and soth meridians.
The reports lately received at the Hydrographic Office would
seem to show that the general drift of the logs has been about
east by south, and that most of them are now west-south-west from
the Azores. Very few, if any, have drifted north of the 4oth par-
allel. A great deal of timber has been reported farther north, to
the westward of the 20th meridian, but, from the descriptions given,
does not seem to be a part of the great raft.
— Dr. David T. Day of the United States Geological Survey has
‘been requested to make a collection of American pottery for the
National Museum. The collection of Sevres pottery presented
‘by the French Government is an exceedingly fine one, as is also
that of Japanese ceramics; and the department of Indian pottery
is not approached elsewhere in the world. But the museum pos-
sesses very little modern American pottery, and it is now proposed
‘to fill up this gap. }
— The funeral of Prof. Roland D. Irving, late of the United
‘States Geological Survey, took place at Tarrytown, N.Y., Saturday,
June 2. Professor Irving, although only forty-one years of age,
had long been connected with the survey, and had done a great
amount of very valuable geological work. At the time of his death
she was engaged in examining the copper-bearing rocks of the Lake
Superior region, in regard to which he had published a monograph
in 1883. Another monograph by him, on the ‘ Penokee-Gogebic
Iron-Bearing Series,’ has been announced. In collaboration with
Mr. C. R. van Hise, he has printed a bulletin on ‘Secondary En-
Jargement of Mineral Fragment in Certain Rocks,’ and, with Mr.
T. C. Chamberlin, ‘Observations on the Junction between the East-
ern Sandstone and the Keweenaw Series on Keweenaw Point, Lake
Superior.’ He had also made many contributions to the scientific
journals.
— The third number of the Amerzcan Journal of Psychology
(Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University) maintains the high expec-
tations of which the preceding numbers gave promise. There are
five original memoirs touching upon several of the fields of this
rapidly growing science, and the usual number of book-notices and
notes. The first article is by Mr. Julius Nelson, and gives an ac-
‘count of his dreams in a manner that gives food for reflection. He
has had the patience to record all his dreams for several years, and,
as the manner of recording soon becomes regular and constant, the
record can be regarded as a relative index of the amount dreamed.
This he regards as the important point rather than the particular
‘content of the dream, and his object is to find with what other
physiological function this variation in the dream-quantities keeps
pace. He finds it in the changes connected with the sexual func-
tion, showing a cycle (in both sexes) of a month, with coinciding
maxima and minima of intensity. Mr. E. C. Sanford describes
‘some very careful tests of the relative legibility of the small letters
-of the alphabet, ascertaining the order of legibility both by the dis-
tances at which they can be read and by the times it takes to read
them, and deducing from his results some important reforms in
‘the shapes of a few of the letters. As a contribution to animal
psychology, Mr. Edwards tells of the habits of a colony of crows
in their winter roost near Baltimore. The most astonishing point
about these roosts is their size, the most modest estimates count-
ang a quarter of a million crows. With surprising regularity they
SCIEINGE:
[Vou. XI. No. 280.
return to the roost at sunset in endless streams, and. leave again
early in the morning. The value of the article is increased by the
full account of the literature of the topic. Dr. William Noyes con-
tributes an interesting description of a case of paranoia expressing
itself in connection with a marked artistic talent. About these
artistic expressions is clustered a system of symbolism of an elabo-
rated type. The article is well illustrated, and the case described
in many respects typical. The final article is by Mr. C. F. Hodge,
and gives the results of a very promising series of experiments. A
group of ganglion cells were electrically stimulated for several
hours, and the changes in the cells under a high power of the
microscope looked for. A diminution in the size of the nucleus,
measured and tabulated, is the most marked change; and the im-
portance of the observation lies in its opening up fa new field of
research, from which much can be expected. Prominent among
the book-notices are those on hypnotism. No less than forty-four
titles occur in this review, and, though this enormous activity in-
cludes much that will not stand the test of science, it none the less
indicates the scope of the subject and the interest it everywhere |
arouses. The other departments contain notices of articles bear-
ing on the nervous system, on experimental, abnormal, and anthro-
pological psychology, — all of value to specialists in these fields.
— We learn from Vature that some months ago a large consign-
ment of salmon ova was despatched from Denmark to Buenos
Ayres, vzd Hamburg, for the stocking of certain lakes and rivers in
the Argentine Republic. The experiment has proved very success-
ful, the ova arriving in excellent condition, and further consign-
ments are to be made.
— According to Wature a marine zodlogical station, on the plan
of the one at Naples, is shortly to be established at Ostend. The
proposal is supported by four Belgian universities.
— The opening of the Transcaspian Railway to'Samarcand recent-
ly is an important event in politics and an interesting one in his-
tory ; but Russian writers have gone a little too far in describing it
as a work of great engineering magnitude. On the contrary, with
the exception of the bridge over the Oxus, according to Engzneer-
zmg, there is not a bit of hard engineering along the whole line.
From one end to the other, a distance of over nine hundred miles,
it traverses a more or less sandy plain, and possesses fewer engi-
neering features of interest than a thousand other railways else-
where on the globe. And yet, for all this, while from a technical
point of view the Transcaspian Railway is a mere trifle, the under-
taking, in regard to its audacious conception and successful accom-
plishment, must long remain a credit to Russian engineering.
Eight years ago any one who would have prophesied that in the
present year of grace trains would be running to Samarcand would
have been considered fit for Bedlam. Universal ridicule was
poured by the Russian press upon General Annenkoff when he
first broached his scheme, and the English press was scarcely less
complimentary to Mr. Charles Marvin when he published an ac-
count of it in his pamphlet, ‘The Russian Railway to Herat and
India.’
— According to Engineering, the Russian Government has al-
ready commenced the cutting of the Perekop Canal. This great
work is intended to provide communication between the Sea of
Azov and Odessa without circumnavigating the Crimea. It will be
III versts, or 74 miles, long, and take about four and a half years
to construct; its completion being timed for the autumn of 1891.
When finished it will prove of considerable strategical and com-
mercial importance. By means of it men-of-war will be able to
proceed from Odessa or Otchakoff to the Sea of Azoy without ex-
posing themselves to capture in passing round the Crimean Penin-
sula, and a short cut will be provided for the transport of coal
from the Azov port of Mariopol to the Black Sea ports of Odessa,
Kherson, and Otchakoff. Both during the Crimean and the last
Turkish war the Russians felt the need of rapid intercourse be-
tween the interior of Russia and the ports of the Black Sea. The
new canal will enable them to concentrate their Don, Volga, and
Azov resources with great facility at the Odessa extremity of the
Czar’s dominions, and will naturally render them more powerful in
controlling the mouth of the Danube. In time of peace the canal
JUNE 15, 1888.]
will be of great service in allowing barges to proceed from the Don
to Odessa, which at the present moment is impossible, and it is
believed that there will be no difficulty in doing this even at periods
when the storms that rage in the Black Sea stop coast navigation.
The commencement of the canal took place without any fuss, all
festivities being reserved for its completion. No engineering diffi-
culties whatever exist.
— The average tonnage of’ships passing through the Suez Canal
has increased from 1,000 tons in 1871, to over 1,750 in 1887. Out
of 3,137 vessels passing through last year, 2,230 were English, and
only 3 American. The Engzneer well says, “This table also in-
dicates the depth to which the once great merchant navy of the
United States has sunk, to find that only three voyages were made
in the year by its ships through this great water-way.”
— The annual reception of the microscopical section of the
Brooklyn Microscopical Society was held June 5.
— At the last meeting of the New York Academy of Sciences,
Mr. George F. Kunz exhibited some of the finest red corundum
(ruby) from within twenty miles of Atlanta, Ga. This was in
pieces weighing one pound, and was part of a mass weighing 350
pounds which was found on the surface. He also exhibited gold
quartz from Dutch Guiana (gold formerly found there only in‘placer
deposits had been traced to the vein by a brother of the United
States consul, Mr. Thomas Brown), and exhibited specimens said
to have assayed $4150 to the ton. The mines are situated four miles
from Paramaribo; and the ore is sent to the coast by natives, who
carry it on their heads in fifty-pound bags, making two trips a day.
He also read a paper entitled ‘List of Diamonds found in the
United States,’ which will be published later on by the society, and
stated, that, in addition to the diamond weighing four and a third
carats, exhibited by him two months ago, and reported as having
been found near Morrow Station, thirteen miles south of Atlanta,
Ga., he had recently heard of a two-carat stone which was brought
to Mr. L. O. Stevens of Atlanta, Ga., by a colored man, who found
it in his garden a few miles from the city, but who would not sell
it, or allow it to be sent North. It was imperfect and off-colored.
Mr. Kunz also said that five years ago he had identified topaz, for
the first time in Maine, at Stoneham; and ever since then he had
been on the lookout for the rare gem phenacite, crystals of which
he had the pleasure of showing on that evening. This was the
first time it had ever been found in the United States outside of
Colorado, where it was first discovered in 1882. In Maine a num-
ber of superb light-green and sherry-colored topaz crystals were
found. They were several inches in length, but of little gem-value.
=
ILIBAT ISAS, AKO) ASUS ITIDICAON,
*.* Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible.
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An Unusual Auroral Bow.
THE description of the aurora of the night of May 20, by Mr.
Kellicott of Buffalo, in Sczeszce of June 1, is so remarkably similar to
the phenomenon as it appeared here, that it seems worthy of men-
tion. Besides ‘“ thelong streamers emanating from a bright, irregu-
lar arch resting on dark clouds,” there appeared that extra arch,
about the apparent width of a rainbow, with its extremities resting
on the eastern and western horizons, and its top passing near the
zenith. This arch was first noticed here at 9.30 P.M. standard time,
and was very bright at that time, but without color. After 9.35
P.M. it began to grow fainter, but was still faintly visible at 10 P.M.
A phenomenon visible here which was not mentioned by Mr. Kelli-
cott was the appearance of a segment of a secondary arch or band
attached to the top of the main arch in the north, and at 9.30 P.M.
extending down to the horizon a little west of north. Between
9.35 P.M. and 9.40 P.M. the lower end of this segment seemed to
detach itself from the earth, and, pulsating like a piece of ribbon
held by one hand and waving in the wind, it rose upward, at the
same time exhibiting beautiful colors, and at 9.40 to 9.42 P.M. joined
the main arch, which assumed the appearance of a bent bow. The
SCIENCE, oh crage
main arch retained this appearance for nearly a half-hour, but
slowly assumed the appearance of the normal auroral bow without
streamers. The times and appearances given above were taken
from notes made at the time of the aurora.
H. HELM CLAyTON..
Blue Hill Observatory, June s.
The People and the Common Schools.
How natural it is for us to try to shift responsibility from our
own shoulders upen some other fellow’s back! and yet, as Lester
Wallack used to say in ‘Ours,’ ‘there is nothing so consoling to a
man, when he is found out, as the sweet consciousness of — guilt.’”
The people are at last becoming conscious that there is some-—
thing wrong in the great public-school system of New York City,.
—a fact that has been evident to every true educator in the landi
for the past ten years; and now the people dearly desire to make
somebody a scapegoat for their sins. After stoning the scape-
goat out of camp and into the wilderness, they would like to again
relapse into a complacent contemplation of their own righteousness,
soothed by a serene sense of duty well done.
They can safely enjoy ‘the sweet consciousness of guilt,” how-
ever. The schools are to-day just what the people, through apathy,
indifference, carelessness, and ignorance, have permitted them to
become, — one vast machine; a treadmill, teachers treading the
wheel, happy innocent children the grist, superintendents for task-
masters, and the product a mass of automatons.
Have you not committed the monumental stupidity of placing,
through laws enacted by your servants, all responsibility for the
management of your schools — not only in monetary matters, but in
all educational affairs as well — into the hands of bankers, brokers.
lawyers, and physicians, who know no more about the science of
education than school-teachers do about finance, law, and medicine,.
and perhaps not half as much ?
To show the utter absurdity of this condition of affairs, it is only
necessary to suggest that the Chamber of Commerce, the Stock
Exchange, the Bar Association, and the County Medical Society
select their governing committees from among the principals of the
New York schools. Preposterous, is it? Would it not be safer to.
intrust affairs of finance to a man who knows, in theory at least, all.
the laws that govern trade — as a principal must —than to intrust
the education of one hundred and fifty thousand children to men.
who know nothing of the science of pedagogy even in theory?
It,is of no use to try to dodge the issue by stating that the Board
of Education is guided in educational matters by the city superin-.
tendent, an expert teacher. Neither he nor the Board of Educa-
tion will permit any such construction of the law defining their
relative positions. The city superintendent pleads that.he is only
responsible for the execution of the law as it stands. The Board.
of Education assumes all responsibility for the inception, enactment,
and continuance of all the laws, other than ‘State Statutes,’ which
he executes.
The city superintendent is thus the self-confessed creature of the
system he administers, instead of being, as you perhaps supposed, in
any degree its creator. If he is not even the author of any portion
of the present system, of which he has been the executive head for the
past nine years, how can he be expected to become the creator of a
nobler plan for the education of your children? You certainly can-
not indulge in any such unreasonable expectation.
You, the people of New York City. are directly responsible for
the larger part of all the evils that exist in the common-school sys-
tem. Your children attend them; you hear from them daily reports
of the manner in which they are educationally crammed; you see
them at home, wearing out their young lives in preparing lessons
for the next day’s recitations; and, if some wise teacher reduces
the tasks assigned for home-study, you immediately begin to in-
quire why your children have no more books, and why they have
so few lessons to learn at home.
I know you do this, for I have heard you talk just that way.
In vain have I pleaded with you for the little ones. In vain have I
told you that five hours’ daily attention to books, to recitations, to
instruction, is all that any growing child can safely endure. ‘No,
no!’’ you cry, “ give them more lessons — give them tasks to do at
home ;” and your children go through their school-lives with the.
290
shadow of the coming task always falling upon the task just fin-
ished. The gentle, obedient, loving, and affectionate little ones
suffer; while the dear bad boys won’t even make an effort, and
thrive accordingly. The teacher can sometimes go home with his
work finished for the day ; the pupil never.
Now, if I will not permit this wrong to be perpetrated in the
‘school under my charge, you take your boy away and send him to
Mr. Examination Hunter’s school; and you take your girl out of
Miss Honest’s department and send her down to Miss Show-off’s
‘school; and then you point with parental pride to the great load of
books your little ones stagger under, as a proof of the superior effi-
‘ciency of those two principals “ whom we allrespect.” Then, when
your little girl graduates, and Miss Show-off orders all the grad-
uates to wear white dresses and tea-roses, and to come in carriages,
and to drape their desks in white, you all say, “She has no right to
give any such orders, and it ought to be stopped, and ” — You get
the dresses and the tea-roses and the carriage, and you attend the
‘reception ; and it is all so beautiful, and the members of the mutual
admiration society do speak so mellifluently, — buttered honey, as
at were, — that you are as proud of your daughter as a drum-major
on parade. And then you go home, and your daughter has ty-
phoid-fever, or spinal meningitis, or some other Latin disease, and
you lay the blame on Providence. Who is to blame if the supply
of sham education be exactly proportioned to your demand for it ?
If you could only once be roused from your apathy on this sub-
ject, do you not know that your servants— the mayor, the Board
-of Education, and the Legislature of this great State of New York
— would skip around like waiters in a dime restaurant to get you
what you want ?
The press has at last taken hold of this matter for you. How
many of you will read what is written in your interest, and how
many more will skip it all in order to read about the latest base-
ball match or the last prize-fight ? If you, happily, by any chance,
have read thus far without throwing down the paper, will you
‘kindly read the summing-up of the whole matter? The public
schools of New York City will never be any better than the people
-of that city demand that they shall be.
EDWARD H. BOYER,
Principal Grammar School 9.
Reflex Speech.
NOTING the paragraph in Sczence of May 25, quoting from the
“Yournal of Mental Science a statement of experiments in réflex
-speech, it seemed to me that certain experiences of my own in re-
flex writing might be of interest. I compose and write with con-
-siderable rapidity, and, on re-reading my manuscript, often find that
my hand has written words in opposition to the orders from my
‘mind. Of the several words beginning with ¢Z, for instance, ‘the’
is often written where ‘they,’ ‘this,’ or some other word, was in-
‘tended. In like manner ‘their’ becomes ‘ there ;’‘ whether’ takes
the form of ‘where ;’ ‘while’ replaces ‘ which,’ ‘what,’ etc.; and
other vagaries of the same general character now and then appear.
Probably experiences of this kind are common, and are passed over
~without reflection as to their cause. They have long seemed to me
evidences of reflex action, In rapid composition, the writing hand
lags behind the conscious thought, which springs on to the words
dn advance, and leaves its successive orders to be executed in an
automatic and unconscious fashion.
Ordinarily the wheels of the brain roll on in due order; but
occasionally the hand seems to take the task of suggestion on itself,
‘taking advantage of the absence of consciousness, and moving in a
‘more customary channel than that directed: ¢%, for instance, is
followed by eg more commonly than by any other letters; and the
hand, if left to the action of reflex suggestion, would write ‘ the’ in
preference to the other #2 words. It is not at all surprising, then,
‘that the writing of 72 sends back a reflex suggestion of e as the
sconcluding letter of the word, which is occasionally of sufficient
strength to overcome the impulse given by consciousness to the
brain to write some other word.
It may be, however, that this phenomenon is due to relations of
the nervous system different from those ordinarily estimated, and
that the brain has nothing to do with the dereliction of duty in the
SCIENCE:
[Vor exci) Nos 260
hand. I should suggest the following theory in explanation of the
phenomenon. The brain does not differ in physical formation from
the inferior ganglia, and may not differ in its power of memory-re-
cording. The impulses which pass along the sensory nerves to the
brain traverse several ganglia on their way thither, and may leave
memory traces in each of these as well as in the brain. The im-
pulses to motion emanating from the brain similarly pass through
inferior ganglia, and may produce in them conditions similar to
those affecting the brain at that instant. But when the conscious-
ness has brought the brain into condition to produce certain suc-
cessive effects, this condition does not exist in the inferior ganglia.
In writing the letters ¢%, for instance, two influences are at work.
There are influences descending from the brain to produce certain
succeeding motions in the fingers; and there are sensory influ-
ences flowing upward from the moving fingers which are full of
reflex suggestiveness. It seems not improbable, then, that this
reflex suggestion may now and then call forth a response from an
inferior ganglion, and thus check the action of the brain, which,
in its unconscious automatism, may need a reflex influence from
the fingers to bring it into condition to complete the word.
If such be the case, we can readily understand why the more
ordinary words beginning with certain letters are occasionally
written, instead of those dictated by consciousness, which begin
with the same letters. It may perhaps be that the work in both
cases is done by the brain, and yet this hardly seems probable: for
the brain is put in train to perform a certain duty, and its tendency
to do this seems likely to be stronger than any reverse tendency to
perform a more customary action. This reverse tendency may un-
doubtedly occasionally gain precedence ; but, if the inferior ganglia
have the capabilities above suggested, it is not improbable that the
reversing influence comes from them, and that the precedence
which the brain possesses while in conscious activity may weaken
during unconsciousness, so that, if the reflex influence from the
hand arouses all the ganglia through which it passes to activity,
an inferior ganglion may occasionally win in the conflict with the
brain, and take control of the reins of action. C. MORRIS,
Philadelphia, Penn., June 5.
Answers.
32. HUMAN BEINGS AS PACK-ANIMALS. — Prof. Joseph Le-
Conte of the University of California sends the following informa-
tion in reply to an inquiry in Sczewzce in reference to the strength
and endurance of the human pack-animal. I shall be extremely
obliged for many notes of this kind from every part of the world.
“In 1844 I travelled by birch-bark canoe something like a thousand
miles, from Lapoint over to the head waters of the Mississippi, and
down the latter to Fort Snelling, at mouth of Minnesota River.
We made several portages, the longest being nine miles. We had
along two trunks, and provisions and bedding for four persons for
one month. The load which our two voyageurs carried was cer-
tainly one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds each. They
made seven miles in one day, going over the ground five times ; i.e.,
thirty-five miles. Three fifths of the distance they were loaded, and
two fifths going back for another load. Their plan was to take the
heaviest load first (about two hundred pounds), and carry it about
a mile or a mile and a half, put it down, go back for another load
of one hundred and fifty pounds, carry this a mile or a mile and a
half beyond the first deposit, then come back, take up the first de-
posit and carry it the same distance beyond, etc., until all was car-
ried to the camp for the night; then, last of all, they went back
seven miles to the last camp, took up the boat (which was the
lightest load of all), and carried it to camp. I will give an account
of one load. They used a leather strap about two inches and a
half wide in middle, and slenderer towards the end, and perhaps
ten or twelve feet long. One fellow, a famous voyagez, would tie
this about my trunk (about seventy-five pounds) in two places near
each end, and throw it over the head, bringing the band across the
forehead, the trunk resting on the back, then take a hundred pounds
of flour and put on the trunk, and then twenty-five pounds of crack-
ers on top of all, and walk off briskly, almost in a trot. The man
was not a large or very muscular man, but rather lean and wiry.”
O, T. Mason.
Washington, D.C., June s.
JUNE 15, 1888. |
SCIENCE:
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1V SCIENCE
[VoLt. XI. No. 280
PERF EC ii
The Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association.
EF. B. HARPER, -
President.
HOME OFFICHS: Potter Building, N.Y. City~
New and Admirable Features of Its Perfected Plan :
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De
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The Peer of Any Company in the World.
The Mutual Reserve was recently examined in the most critical
and careful manner by
The Insurance Department of Missouri,
Hon. Alfred Carr, Superintendent, the examination being con-
ducted by Hon. E. W. Knott, Deputy Superintendent, and Hon.
Aug. F. Harvey, Department Actuary. These gentlemen, in |
their official report, and an authorized interview thereupon, said
as follows :
EVERYTHING THROWN OPEN.
‘« Hverything in the offices of the association was thrown open to
us. The employees were told who we were, and were instructed
that we were the temporary masters of the entire establishment; in |
short, we were at liberty to do exactly as we liked, and I can say
frankly that we availed ourselves of our privileges to the fullest ex-
tent.”
INTEGRITY OF THE MANAGEMENT.
“There is no question whatever as to the integrity of the com-
pany’s officers; the books themselves show the condition of things, and
they have been kept so correctly that they would at once reveal any-
thing wrong. Our inspection of the books showed that the Mutual
Reserve Fund Life Association’s affairs are so dovetailed into one
another that fraud on the part of the management could be success-
ful only in the altogether improbable event of a wholesale conspiracy
on the part of the management.”’
PAYMENT OF DEATH CLAIMS.
““ We examined each of their claims separately. We saw the evi-
dence upon which the claims were cut down in every case. We went
into this ma‘ter very carefully, for the reason that the company’s
action with reference to those claims had occasioned wide discussion,
and for the further reason that I myself had a certain degree of pre-
judice, which had been created by the very publicity which the
matter had received. I can say frankly that I did not find a single
claim cut deeper than I myself would have cut it had I been sitting
in judgment upon it.” ‘‘We ascertained that the mortuary fund has
in no case been charged with more than the actual amount paid in
compromise, the evidence being the correspondence of the item in
the account and the check indorsed by the beneficiary.”
HONESTY, PRUDENCE AND WISDOM.
‘* Now, as to your three questions regarding the honesty, prudence
and wisdom of the management. The members of the association
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before settling claims. They acted in good faith toward survivors.” |
“My judgment is that the company conducts its affairs just asa
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The Association’s System of Premiums is exactly
| as regular asthe Level Premium System. Each
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AUG. F. HARVEY,
Actuary Missouri Insurance Department.
IT HAS PAID OVER
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IN DEATH CLAIMS.
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EDWARD B HARPER President.
ALFRED TAYLOR, Vice-President.
E. T. BRAMAN, Secretary.
N. W. BLOSS, Resident Vice-Pres. for Great Britain.
J. W. BOWDEN, M D., Medical Director.
Hon. HENRY J. REINMUND, late Supt. Ins. Dept. of Ohio,
Comptroller.
SAMUEL A. ROBINSON, M.D., Chairman Investment Com.
WILLIAM MILLER, Director of Agencies.
TAYLOR & PARKER, Attorneys
G. R. McCHESNEY, Adjuster.
THE CENTRAL TRUST COMPANY OF NEW YORK.
Trustee of the Tontine Reserve Fund.
SCIENCE
SIXTH YEAR.
NEW YORK, June 22, 1888.
SINGLE CoprEes, TEN CENTS.
VoL. XI. No. 281. $3.50 PER YEAR, IN ADVANCE.
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Editorial ; . 291 | Health Matters.
The Science of Names. — Shall the eaien Bureau be under Alcoholic T
Civil or Military Control ? Cae ae on
A New Military Ration > CN 299
The Efficiency of Mechanical Engineering Wounds of the Abdomen . Nae wo. 299
Schools : : : 292 5
> i ®
The Ethnic Position of Se Benue Nation 294 Book-Reviews.
The Great March Blizzard if x 295 Lectures on the Science of Thought 299
2 3 Bibliographie des Modernen Hypnotismus 300
Electrical Science. | Die Ekstasen des Menschen 300
Atmospheric Electricity 296
Incandescent Lamps with Alternating and Direct Currents 296 | Notes and News 301
Polarization of Platinum Plates 296
Electric Mining Road at Lykens 296 5
Designing Dynamo-Electric Machines 296 Letters to the Editor.
Mental Science. An Unusual Auroral Bow . Francis H, Allen 302
The Relative Legibility of the Small Letters 297 Concerning the Montville Serpentine George P. Merrill 302
Notes on Hypnotism 6 208 Queries . . 5 0 0 3 302
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FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 1888.
A WRITER TO the Contributors’ Club of the July A¢/antzc rightly
says that much time and thought are spent in selecting a name for
a play or novel, for it is known that success is largely dependent
on it, but that parents are strangely careless and unscientific in
giving names to children. In the Harvard and Yale catalogues of
last year the contributor finds but two or three combinations really
good in his opinion. Usually, when a new-comer arrives, some
old family name is taken; or, if the parents exercise an original
choice, they are too much excited to be guided by any sound
euphonic principles. They forget that not only from the social
point of view it is very advantageous to have one’s name remem-
bered, but that from the business point of view notoriety is capital,
and must be obtained by persistent and ingenious advertising. But
if a certain amount of notoriety could be obtained for John Smith
by an expenditure of time, money, and ingenuity represented by ~,
and spread over a period of three years, the AZ/antzc writer
thinks it safe to say that the same amount could be obtained for
Hans Arrowsmith by # in eighteen months. Nor does he think
the saving of time and money on the part of the knocker at the
gate of notoriety the only thing to be considered. The economy of
the public stock of energy wasted in innumerable unconscious
efforts to remember a name without any corners for the memory
to grasp, but persistently thrust before it, would result in an increase
of available mental force applicable to settling the question of future
probation, or to raising the ethical standard, or to reforming the
tariff, or to disposing of the surplus. The importance of the sub-
ject leads to the suggestion of one or two of what we believe to be
the chief fundamental principles of the science of naming children,
The system is simple, and any provident parent can easily master
and apply it. 1. Avoid odd, or eccentric, or poetic combinations,
and be guided by euphonic quality only. It is true that an odd
name may be remembered, but the associations with it will not be
pleasing. The idea of oddity or affectation may attach to the
shadowy personality built up in the mind of the public. Under this
rule, hyphenated names, especially hyphenated Christian names,
like Floyd-Jones Robinson, are to be avoided. Writing the first
given name with an initial and the second in full is also evidently
‘opposed to correct scientific principles. 2. The best form of a
name is a dactyl and a spondee, like ‘Jeremy Taylor.’ Every one
thas heard of the ‘ Shakspeare of divines,’ and has a dim idea of an
agreeable personality attached to the name. Had his name been
‘Charles Taylor, it is far within bounds to say that his reputation
would be about one-third of what itis now. 3. If the surname is
not one that can be treated according to the above rule, it should
be fitted with a given name, such as to bring the combination as
nearly as possible to the above length and cadence, as, Sidney
Dobell, Ellery Vane, Henry Ward Beecher, Dante Rossetti, Theo-
-dore Watts, and the like; or, otherwise, to two long syllables, like
Mark Twain or Bret Harte. The subdivisions of this branch of
the subject are too numerous to be given, but all rest on principle
No. 2. The phonic value of the surname is, under our custom,
the controlling element in practically applying the science of names.
The great value of names beginning with ‘ Mac’ or ‘ O’ is evident,
because they so readily combine with the ordinary Christian names.
A boy pervades the A¢/antzc writer’s quiet neighborhood simply
because his name is Johnny MacWhorter. He is not in any respect
a remarkable boy, but his name forces him into prominence by its
phonic value. There are some ten or twelve boys who are com-
rades, but he and another dactyl-spondee boy, Emory Watson, are
the only ones ever spoken of. No doubt there are others who do
as much mischief and make more noise, but these two reap all the
fame.
THE BILL CREATING a department of agriculture has been recom-
mitted in the Senate, the object of those who voted this disposition
of it being to’have restored the section, which had been stricken out,
transferring the Weather Bureau to the proposed new department.
What the final vote upon this question will be is still in doubt, asis
also its wisdom. The Weather Bureau has become a necessity to
the people of the United States, who will cheerfully pay the million
dollars that it annually costs, but who will insist, that, if any change
in the service is made, it shall be certain to bring about an improve-
ment, and not a deterioration. The provision of the section in
question that gives to all present officers of the Signal Service who
shall be transferred to the proposed new department a perpetual
tenure of office, at their present pay, making no provision for weed-
ing out the worthless men or advancing the competent ones, is
certainly not calculated to make the service any better. It would-
probably result in the permanent retention of the incompetent,
dissipated men in the Weather Bureau; while the bright men, who
would be really useful in the bureau, would prefer other positions,
where they might be promoted as they deserved.
The observations upon which the Weather Bureau bases its cal-
culations are now all made by enlisted men of the army, who have
been specially instructed and trained for the work. No political
influence whatever has been allowed to operate for their appoint-
ment, promotion, or retention in the service. It has been the aim
of the chief of the Signal Office to send to all important stations men
who will be acceptable to the communities in which they are to
live and do their work, but no member of Congress has been able
to secure the transfer or removal of an observer sergeant in order
that some favorite might be put in his place. The security which
the observer sergeants have felt for the terms of their enlistment
has certainly had a beneficial effect upon the character of the ser-
vice they have rendered. It may seem an anomaly to the people
that a duty that is in no respect of a military character should be
done by soldiers rather than by civilians, but the military organiza-
tion of the Weather Bureau has certainly resulted in keeping
political influence from dictating in regard to the fersonnel of a
class of men whose appointment and promotion it was very desir-
able to keep free from this influence.
A straw was in the wind the other day which shows the direc-
tion it has already taken in anticipation of the change. Mr. Hatch,
member of Congress from Missouri, and chairman of the Commit-
tee on Agriculture, recently recommended that a certain private in
the Signal Service be made a lieutenant, and the entire Missouri
delegation joined in the request. When the matter was referred to
General Greely, he replied that the promotion could not be made.
In the first place, it would be illegal to appoint the man to be a
lieutenant unless he was already a sergeant, and he could not be
made a sergeant because he was incompetent for the duties of that
office. If the man had been a civil officer, or the bureau had been
attached to a civil department, he would probably have secured his
promotion. A new plan to transform the Weather Bureau from a
292
military to a civil one was disclosed in the sundry civil appropria-
tion bill reported in the House last Saturday. It provides for the
appointment of a civil force of 111 persons in the office of the Chief
Signal Officer, with an aggregate compensation of $114,500 a year,
and this force it is proposed to substitute for the present military
one of 150 men, and so save an expense of $70,748 a year.
THE EFFICIENCY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
SCHOOLS.’
WHEN the alumni of a school of engineering meet in annual re-
union and conference, it is but natural to select for discussion a
subject the serious deliberation of which will, to some extent at
least, advance alike the interests of engineering practice and of the
technical school itself. The technical graduate, who loves his pro-
fession and his alma mater, must deem it a wish of his heart to
further in every way the harmony between the training and the
practice of the engineer, to raise the efficiency of both the practice
and the school to the highest attainable standard.
Happily, it is a fact that each day the value and importance of
the technical school are becoming better appreciated, and that at this
time none are readier to acknowledge the benefits conferred by
systematic training in such schools than the leading engineers, who,
without such preparation, have by their individual, unaided efforts,
risen to deserved prominence and fame. Such general appreciation
is recognized in the spoken and written word of the foremost men
in the profession, in the fact that they send their sons and advise
young men seeking to become mechanical engineers to attend these
schools, and in the marked preference shown in the employment of
the technically trained engineers. That these are facts is a cause
for congratulation, a testimony to the value of systematic study,
and an evidence of at least an average efficiency on the part of the
leading schools of mechanical engineering. It is a great advance
upon the time, not so long ago, when it was presumed that the
main thing —and the first thing — the technical graduate had to do
was to unlearn almost every thing he had acquired in the schools.
While we should be duly grateful that the status at the present
day is such as we have pictured it, we must not conclude hastily
that the technical school is fulfilling its entire mission, or, if I may
so term it, attaining an efficiency of one. JI am well aware that this
would be asking too much; for what device, scheme, or appliance
can show up this efficiency ? At the sametime the technical school
should approach this limiting value of the perfect device as nearly as
possible, and we should study the sources of loss, so as to reduce
the losses to a minimum.
Such is naturally the main object of the serious work of alumni
meetings, and the president’s address should at least serve as an
incentive to direct special thought on the part of the membership to
these particulars. ,
From this point of view, the inquiry has suggested itself to me as
worthy of our consideration, has the instruction in schools of me-
chanical engineering, within the past twelve years, progressed so as
to conform to the increasing needs called for by the engineering
advances secured within the same time?
In a paper read last month before the American Society of Me-
chanical Engineers, one of the members, who has practically con-
tributed to the progress of the printing-press, presents ‘A Plea for
the Printing-Press in Mechanical Engineering Schools.’ It is an
honest plea, courteously uttered, and with an evident desire in no
way to disparage the value of the training secured in engineering
schools. The writer maintains, that while the printing-press shares,
perhaps, alike with the steam-engine the fame as a great civilizer,
no attention is given to it in any specific way in the leading engi-
neering schools; that no books relating to it are studied or referred
to, no lectures delivered detailing its mechanism ; that its factories
are not inspected by the students; and that no sample machines
adorn the schools’ laboratories of engineering. All this is inferred
by the writer from a perusal of the catalogues. Usually, judgment
as to the course of studies pursued, if based solely on the cata-
logues themselves, is a dangerous procedure, apt to lead to fatal
1 Presidential address delivered by Alfred R. Wolff, M.E., before the Alumni As-
sociation of the Stevens Institute of Technology, June 13, 1888.
SCHEN GE:
[Vot. XI. No. 281
errors ; but in this case no mistake is made, for it is a fact that the
printing-press receives but little if any attention in the engineering
schools.
Had our friend, the writer, been interested to draw the picture of
neglect of subjects discussed still further, he would have soon discoy-
ered that small attention, if any, is paid in the course pursued in
engineering schools to type setting and distributing machines, paper-
making machinery, envelope-machines, sewing and stitching ma-
chines, which are allied closely with the printing-press as civilizing
agents. Andif helooked over the many practical industrial engineer-
ing fields, he would have had to comé to the conclusion, that, as a
whole, but little if any attention is paid to hat-making, cloth-finish-
ing, brick-making, and agricultural machinery, and the like, and
that even the looms of various nature come in for the most cursory
attention.
Had this been done, the amount of neglect discovered would have
been so appalling that he would logically have been forced to one
of two conclusions, — either that his point of view and solution
were not the proper ones ; or that mechanical engineering schools
are essentially a failure, and not in one whit entitled to the credit
which he really liberally bestows, when having but the one practi-
cal omission in mind, and not the many others, no less important
ones, only a few of which we have enumerated.
Had the latter conclusion, condemning the schools as a failure,
been reached, it would, in my judgment, have been a totally erro-
neous one.
Still the fact remains that within the past twelve years (and I
only name this period because it is the term in which, since grad-
uating from Stevens, I have followed more closely and played
my humble part in the current of events) the progress made in
most of the individual engineering and mechanical pursuits has.
been tremendous, while entirely new industries have called for new
engineering appliances, and, vzce versa, new inventions have devel-
oped new industries.
What should be the relation of the course of study pursued in
the schools of mechanical engineering to these ever-increasing im-
portant industrial engineering applications ?
Should every new, important mechanical device, especially if it
brings with it new fields of practical employment and labor for the
engineer, immediately find its place as a study in the engineering
school ?
If this be so, the school of mechanical engineering will have to:
extend its term of study to an indefinite extent ; and ere long it will
come to pass that the young student, entering as a beardless youth,
will graduate from the school as a gray-haired man in the decline
of life: for, surely, if every important machine is to be the subject
of special study in the technical school, a lifetime will only suffice
to cover the ground. And the result ?
The result would be that the engineering schools would be of no
use to the world ; for the world’s engineering work would be being
done by outsiders, while the gray-haired students, plodding along,
would be kept busy studying this very work, and not be active
agents in its development.
I have purposely drawn this picture from an extreme point of
view, for such method often enables us to discover what the funda-
mental truth underlying the problem really is. I think, in this
case, the truth is apparent at once.
It is the mission of the technical school to inculcate the princi-
ples of engineering, to train and mature the powers of observation
and mechanical judgment, and, after teaching the laws of physics
and mechanics, to give the ability to apply these laws to problems
arising in machinery and the industrial arts. The special machines
and appliances dwelt upon in the school should serve this one pur-
pose : a knowledge of them should not be the end, but the means.
Because we can best inculcate and supplement a correct under-
standing of the physical laws, and a knowledge of how to apply
them to the design of machinery, by studying the successful appli-
cations made, therefore such study should form an important fac-
tor in the course of the technical school.
These engines, motors, machines, factories, and engineering
works should serve as the constant tests and checks of the stu-
dent’s efforts at individual design. When the student has once ac-
quired the ability to put physical principles and experimental data
JUNE 22, 1888.]
into the best engineering forms, bearing in mind economy of mate-
rial, with least sacrifice of strength, best method of handling, man-
agement, and the like, he comes equipped to struggle with new
machines of which he has had no previous special knowledge. The
‘school cannot give to the student all this desirable latent power, or
stored energy, for much of it must come in later life from individ-
ual, unaided effort ; and the experiences of daily application (often
-coupled with some degree of failure) must be the teachers which
never leave the side of the devotee of engineering science. But
these teachers are most efficient, if the student has been trained in
the engineering school both and ever to reason before beginning
work, and to check his previous reasoning by the results secured.
If we regard the technical school from this aspect, it is plain why
the various prime movers play so important an element inthe course
-of instruction, to the disadvantage of other possibly equally impor-
tant machines.
They are the most direct applications of very important and lead-
ing iaws of physics; and the intelligent discussion of the prime
movers calls for quite a knowledge of these laws, both in experi-
mental and mathematical form. The problems of mechanics are
‘splendidly embodied in the design of the various parts, and in
many diverse ways, modified as is the application by the strains to
which the parts are submitted, the strength of the materials, and
the practical methods of their working. Every conceivable strain,
simple and compound, since it enters the working of the steam-
engine, for instance, comes up for consideration, while all the
leading materials enter its construction. The prime movers act
as fine checks on the student’s individual efforts at design, for they
represent the embodiment of centuries of application and develop-
ment by the best engineering talent. They give opportunity for
experimental verification of the laws of physics and mechanics as
well.
In other words, I maintain that the main reason why the prime
movers play so important a factor, and occupy so leading a part,
in the course of study of a technical school, is not directly because
they are such great civilizing agents and have so wide an applica-
tion, but because they serve, as above indicated, as the best
method of study for the incipient engineer. I do not think that the
latter point has been sufficiently analyzed, emphasized, and made
clear, certain as I am that you will agree with me as to its impor-
tance and truth.
And it is for the same reason that other far-reaching machinery,
such as I have mentioned, great as is its use, and important as is
its development, can have but little time devoted to its study in the
technical school. It is because, as engineering exercises, these
machines do not equal the prime movers; and saving of time
‘commands that the best exercises be adopted. If the prime mov-
ers were far less important industrial factors than they really are,
their study would, in a well-regulated course of engineering, which
is planned not as an advertising medium, but is based on the prin-
ciple of serving the student best, be just as important a matter and
as conspicuous as is the case to-day. I think the point of view that
the machinery discussed in the schools should be the educational
means, should be the exercises adopted for testing and furthering
a knowledge of the laws of physics and mechanics, as embodied in
design, is an efficient answer to much of the criticism of the class
to which we have referred. :
If it be insisted on, that the reason so much time is devoted to
the prime movers (notably steam-engines) is because of their general
application in all industries, I will admit that this may have been the
cause why originally they were put down for so much attention.
Had it then, however, not been shown that they serve as well as
the best exercises in the application of the laws of physics, me-
chanics, and design, they could not have held their place, and
would, long ere this, have nad to give way to the study of other
devices of less wide application which answered the educational
need better.
I fully appreciate the view that it is commendable, indeed desir-
able, that the students, when graduating from technical schools,
should possess some general knowledge of the leading machines in
the market ; but the first essential thing is, that they should have
acquired the ability to be useful workers in every field by being
possessed of a knowledge of the principles and methods of proced-
SCIEN GE:
293
ure which underlies all engineering works and machines and their
design.
At the same time let us not be slow to learn all we can from
criticism honestly advanced; and so, while I do not deem it an
essential matter, I say (cost, room, and time permitting) it were
well, perhaps, if some few important machines, now totally neg-
lected, could find some place as types in the engineering labora-
tories, and receive some brief attention by visits to the factories, or,
in some cases, by evening lectures delivered by specialists. To a
limited extent this might prove, it appears to me, a proper field for
non-resident lectureships. It is indeed a question whether such
lectures on special machines not at all studied in the school, de-
livered by acknowledged experts, would not prove more useful than
the growing practice of having matters that are gone over in detail
in the regular course reviewed hastily in brief discourse by leading
engineers. In the nature of things, these outsiders are apt to be
at sea in point of exact information as to the extent of preparation
and acquisition of their hearers, the students, in the special subject
under discussion, and thus are led to indulge in the dispensation of
elementary information or fruitless generalities, which add little or
nothing to the students’ knowledge or ability.
But, before even this special lecture course is undertaken, we
should make sure that any time which can be gained cannot be
more advantageously employed in a more thorough course of the
prime movers themselves ; for to-day it is a common experience
and regret, on the part of professors of engineering, that they cannot
find in the crowded curriculum much needed leisure to devote
to some important educational problems in design and applied
engineering which these prime movers offer.
The general view that time is an important factor, that the best
attainable must be accomplished within a given time, and those
exercises be adopted which will serve as the best means of further-
ing a knowledge of the principles in their engineering aspect, and,
furthermore, the desirability to embrace every thing of real impor-
tance in the course, makes it a vital matter to constantly scrutinize
and keep close watch on the course pursued, in the hope of dis-
covering whether some matters studied might not be omitted or
advantageously modified, so as to give spare time to the essential.
Regarding it from this aspect, it has occurred to me that some
_of the theoretical preparatory studies pursued, such as mathematics,
physics, chemistry, and the like, — and I purposely omit languages,
belles-lettres, and those general academic branches having a less
intimate connection with the engineering course, — seem not to be
carried out in some particulars so as to secure the highest efficiency
from an engineering point of view.
Let me call your attention to this point. Is it not remarkable
that essentially the same text-books on physics, chemistry, analyti-
cal mathematics, descriptive geometry, and the like, are studied at
engineering schools as at the ordinary academic course of a univer-
sity? Does not this fact of itself almost imply that the studies, as
pursued, are not made to specially adapt themselves to the needs
of the applied studies of the engineer? Could not some abstract
developments, now dwelt upon at length, be advantageously omit-
ted, while physical experiments and applications in heat, electricity,
and the like, be more copiously introduced as exercises, both with
the view of imparting a thorough hold on the abstract taught, and
also as imparting requisite useful information and methods of pro-
cedure? It is my opinion, that, in the application of mathematics
to physical problems, even the mathematician, and certainly the
engineer, can best test and master a knowledge of the mathematics
themselves.
How common is the experience of those who, having acquired in
the usual way, even from the best of masters, what they considered
a pretty fair hold on calculus, —and this embraces the experience
of many gifted students, — when they tried to apply this knowledge
in the study of the mechanical theory of heat, found they really had
no thorough grip on the calculus, as they had presumed, and had,
in fact, to start anew, with a decided loss of time, which might, it
seems to me, have been avoided !
I concede the value as fully, and am as anxious as any one to
guard the pursuit of knowledge in the abstract on its own account.
Still, I say, why not in plane, solid, descriptive, and analytical
geometry, and in calculus and other analytical mathematics, gain
294
some time now devoted to the elucidation of abstract propositions,
and detailed elaborations in various forms of the same propositions,
of no direct value, and some time now devoted to applications,
which, designed to test the understanding, are really essentially
numerical substitutions, so as to find leisure to supply physical
problems as atest? The latter problems best serve to call forth a
true knowledge of the principles. It is only in such application that
we discover whether we have really grasped and actually secured
the full meaning of the principle. So, too, in the course of physics
as pursued in mechanical engineering schools, some details now
studied, from force of habit and as being the regular thing in a
complete course of physics, might, it appears to me, be advanta-
geously omitted, and replaced by special and more extended work
in heat, electricity, elasticity, and the like.
Surely, I trust, this will not be misinterpreted as a plea for the
abandonment of study of abstract principles. The abstract prin-
ciple is to be thoroughly studied, and the application is designed to
insure the full comprehension of the principle. But why not select
as far as possible, and dwell mainly on, such abstract principles,
which can be re-enforced by these physical tests, and select such
practical physical exercises, experience in which will re-act alike
most directly to the comprehension of the abstract, and as desirable
preparatory knowledge for the engineering course ?
This is the only solution, if a four-years’ course is to suffice ; and,
furthermore, it is in direct accord with the principle which under-
lies the engineering instruction, and which permits us to pay little
attention to many fine important engineering devices, such as the
printing-presses, agricultural machinery, and the like.
You will readily appreciate that this insertion of proper exercises,
this working-out of special text-books and courses of study in the
various elementary sciences, forming the foundation and most of
the first two years’ course of the mechanical engineer, applies to
the several branches taught. I cannot burden this already too long
address with details in the several departments ; but there is, it ap-
pears to me, no great difficulty in discovering them when careful
search is made.
If the point here emphasized would be borne in mind more stead-
fastly than is now the case, I believe time could be saved in the
two later years, when the deficiency outlined must be then sup-
plied as best it can, and some further exercises bearing on useful
applications in design, and special lectures now crowded out, could
find room.
If I have dwelt on the time available as an important factor in
the educational problem, it is not to be interpreted as a favoring of
undue haste. Better acquire some things thoroughly than a greater
number superficially, for only in thorough acquirement can habits
of correct observation and matured judgment be formed.
If I pointed out that in the two years’ preparatory work of the
course in an engineering school the general scheme seems to me,
as far as I have been able to follow the matter, to be essentially the
same during the past twelve years, while the fact of the rapid de-
velopments in applied engineering does make it important to con-
sider some matters, at least from a general point of view, not neces-
sary to consider at all twelve years ago, it is not to be construed
as a sweeping criticism of this preparatory course. Such course is
in my opinion, on the whole, admirable, but I believe it could be
improved in the particular named. At the same time I am aware
that a practising engineer, who only gives thought to these educa-
tional matters now and then, isapt to underrate the progress made ;
which progress may, in fact, be much greater than he anticipates,
and perhaps even in the very line of the criticism advanced. If it
bethus, so much the better that these words be uttered at the alum-
ni meeting of the leading school of mechanical engineering in
the country, where the presence of the faculty and their participa-
tion in the discussion will speedily lead to rectification of the error,
if such it be, and to the enlightenment of those graduates and
others who share the views just set forth.
In closing, let me emphasize that what I have said is meant to
apply not specifically to our own alma mater, but to mechanical
engineering schools in general.
THE conferring of degrees at the close of the tweifth academic
year of the Johns Hopkins University took place June 14.
SCIENCE.
[Vor. XI. No. 281
THE ETHNIC POSITION OF THE BASQUE NATION.
THE Basque or Euskarian people of the Pyrenean and Cantab-
rian ridge are supposed to count at present about six hundred
thousand souls. Four-fifths of them live on Spanish territory.
They are well-proportioned in their bodies, but rather small, so
that a large percentage have to be excluded from military ser-
vice. Most of them are of a dark-brown complexion, although
blondes are not scarce. Their faces are oval, their features agree-
able, their general health excellent; and “to run like a Basque”
has become a proverbial locution throughout the south-west of
Europe. Among the Spanish Basques the dolichocephalic type is
almost the only one observed. These and other ethnologic points
form the introductory to a learned article by Prof. G. Gerland, ‘ The
Basques and the Iberians,’ inserted in the first volume of G. Gro-
ber’s ‘Grundriss der romanischen Philologie,’ one of the best en-
cyclopedic works that ever appeared on the Romance languages of
southern Europe (1886, pp. 313-334). The peculiar social and
legal customs of the Basques, our author continues, make of them
a people with archaistic survivals of various kinds, but do not by
any means prove them to be an ethnologically isolated race. But
their peculiar language shows them to be distinct from any other
nationality. Some said that the ‘ Vascuence’ was the language
spoken in Paradise, while others believed “that even the Devil could
not acquire this tongue.’ The sound fis wanting in all its dialects,
and the language belongs to the agglutinative type. The radices
are all monosyllables, or reducible to such, verbal roots being
made clearly distinct from nominal roots. Basque is a pure suffix
language, prefixes being unknown: even the definite article ‘a’ is
postpositive. The language is not sex-denoting, except in the pro-
noun. The inflection of the transitive verb differs from that of the
intransitive, but in both is mainly carried on by auxiliary verbs.
The large number of verbal conjugations established by the earlier
grammarians chiefly rest on the various direct and indirect pro-
nominal objects that may become connected with the verb.
All these distinguishing traits of the language separate the Basque
from the Celts as well as from the Romans; but whether they
separated them also from the old Iberians is the problem which
Gerland (and so many others before him) has tried to solve. The
reports of the ancients upon the popular customs of the Iberians
wholly coincide with what we know of the Basques of to-day; but
a much more stringent proof lies in the fact that the ancient local
names of the largest portion of Hispania, then inhabited by the
Iberians, can be explained through the Basque language only.
This region of Basque local names also extended over Aquitania in
south-western France; and it is a striking fact in favor of this
theory, that the present Gasconian dialect does not know the sounds
f and v, for the Gascons are nothing else but Romanized Basques,
and the tribal name of the ancient Ausci in those parts is the radix
of the name ‘ Euskarian.’
That the Iberians, or ancient Basques as we may call them with
Gerland, formed a unit as to their language and ethnic peculiarities,
is evidenced by the fact that the Spanish language was evolved in
homogeneous, uniform manner throughout the peninsula, whereas.
in France and Italy the ethnic difference of the inhabitants has
produced dialects in the north and south which are opposed to.
each other, just as so many different languages. Although an
immigration of Celts about 530 B.C. produced a race called Celti-
berians, the manners and customs have remained Iberian with
small modifications, and the dialectic differences among these were
probably inconsiderable. Among the Iberian features which have
impressed themselves upon the Spanish people, Gerland counts the
bigotry and fanaticism of the Church, and the fondness for auda-
cious, adventurous maritine expeditions.
While enumerating Basque terms which have found their way
into the Spanish literary language, Gerland very pertinently remarks.
that barely one-third of these is found in the Portuguese, but that
several had entered into the Hispano-Roman dialect at the time of
the Roman domination. The Latin tongue has undergone less
alterations in the Spanish language than in any other of the Ro-
mance languages of modern times. This is explained by Gerland
by the fact that the Basque then spoken in the country was too
heterogeneous for having much influence on the phonetics and mor-
phology of the new language then in course of formation, The
June 22, 1888.|
late Prof. Fr. Diez was of different opinion. He thought that Ital-
ian was that Romance language which formed the nearest approach
to Old Latin. But there is no doubt that Spanish and Portuguese
show considerable repugnance against the sound /, and that the
double pronunciation of 7 in Spanish and Portuguese is identical
with the one we find in Basque. Gerland also proposes the query,
whether the softened Z, %, 2, so frequent in Basque, have caused the
softening of Zand z into 7 and # of Spanish as well as of Portu-
guese, or whether this must be ascribed to other causes.
THE GREAT MARCH BLIZZARD.
THE great storm off the Atlantic coast of the United States of
March 11-14 will probably go into history as the most severe ex-
perienced since this country has been inhabited by Europeans. Not
only was it remarkable for its force and duration, but also for the
unexpected manner of its appearance and development, and for the
track it followed from the time it was first observed to that of its
final disappearance.
No previous great storm at sea has been as thoroughly studied
from such abundance of data as this very fortunately has been.
From the time that the first vessel arrived in port which had en-
countered the storm at sea, to the present, the Hydrographic Office
of the Navy Department has been collecting, arranging, and com-
paring all the reports in regard to it that have been received,
and will soon publish a monograph giving a history of the great
disturbance, illustrated by a number of carefully prepared maps and
charts. Mr. Everett Hayden, who has had charge of the work, in
a paper recently read before the National Geographic Society, gave
the substance of what this monograph will contain. The following
is an abstract of his paper.
Mr. Hayden began by referring briefly to the difficulties and de-
lays that necessarily attend the collection of data by which to study
the character and progress of a great ocean-storm, and illustrated
these by stating the fact that a ship which recently arrived at New
York from Calcutta supplied very valuable facts regarding one of
the great hurricanes of August last, from a region to the westward
of the Cape Verde Islands, where data were especially needed.
Four large colored charts were used to illustrate the meteorologi-
cal conditions over the area charted (latitude 25° to 5° north, lon-
gitude 50° to 85° west) at 7 A.M., 75th meridian time, March 11,
12, 13, and 14 respectively. These charts contained isobars for
each tenth of an inch, reduced pressure, and isotherms for each
10° F.; temperatures above freezing, in a tint of varying intensity of
red; and below freezing, of blue. A large track-chart with ves-
sels’ positions and tracks enabled the audience more clearly to fol-
low the discussion and the storm-reports which were quoted. A
barometer diagram illustrated the fluctuations of the barometer at
six land-stations and on board six vessels, selected with special refer-
ence to the completeness of their data, and their position relative
to the storm. Diagrams were prepared, also, to show the varying
height of the barometer along north-and-south sections, selected to
emphasize the fact that the special feature of the storm was its
trough-like form, the isobars about the area of low barometer
being elliptical in shape, along a north-and-south line, and moving
eastward between two ridges of high barometer.
The synchronous weather-charts were discussed successively.
The first, that for 7 A.M., March 11, showed a trough of low barome-
ter reaching from the Gulf far northward, past the eastern shore of
Lake Huron, toward the southern limits of Hudson Bay. Off the
coast a ridge of high barometer stretched down from the Gulf of
St. Lawrence toward Santo Domingo, passing about midway be-
tween the Bermudas and Cape Hatteras. To the westward an-
other ridge of high barometer extended from Dakota to below the Rio
Grande. Along the coast the prevailing winds were therefore east-
erly and south-westerly ; the warm, moist air drawn up from down
within the tropics causing a warm wave, with generally cloudy
weather and rain. In rear of the line of low barometer, a cold,
north-westerly wind was blowing, carrying a cold wave far down
into the Gulf, with frosts as far south as Louisiana and Mississippi,
and cool northerly winds clear down to Vera Cruz.
Before considering the next chart, a description was given of
the meteorological conditions off the coast, awaiting the advance
SCMeNGES
295
of this long line of cold north-westerly gales, which was moving
eastward at the rate of about six hundred miles a day. Attention
was also called to the importance of considering, in this connec-
tion, the vitally important influence of the great warm ocean-cur-
rent, the Gulf Stream, in increasing the energy of storms when
they reach the coast. By way of more vividly illustrating the en-
ergy of action developed when cold winds blow over it, mention
was made of the many water-spouts reported off the coast the last
few months, and a few of those reports were quoted. It was
shown, also, that the surface temperature in the axis of the Gulf
Stream off Hatteras was as high as 76°, while that of the cold in-
shore current was fully 30° lower.
The storm was then followed as it approached the coast, its -
energy increasing every hour, and the barometric depression deep-
ening. At 3 P.M., one centre, with pressure as low as 29.7, had
just passed the coast south of Hatteras; while another, with press-
ure quite as low, or lower, was central over the Province of Onta-
rio. Although the general trough-like form of the storm remained,
as Clearly indicated by reports from vessels all along the coast, yet
another secondary storm-centre, and one of very great energy,
formed offshore, north of Hatteras, as soon as the line had passed
the coast. It was this centre, in violence fully equal to a tropical
hurricane, and rendered still more dangerous by the freezing
weather and blinding snow, which raged with such fury off Sandy
Hook and Block Island for two days, —days likely to be long
memorable along the coast. Its long continuance was probably
due to the retardation of the centre of the line in its eastward mo-
tion, by the areas of high barometer about Newfoundland ; so that
this storm-centre delayed between Block Island and Nantucket,
while the northern and southern flanks of the line swung around
to the eastward, the advance of the lower one gradually cutting off
the supply of warm, moist air rushing up from lower latitudes into
contact with the cold north-westerly gale sweeping down from off
the coast between Hatteras and Nantucket.
So far as the ocean is concerned, the night of the 11th-12th saw
the great storm at its maximum, and its great extent and terrific
violence make it to be one of the most severe ever experienced off
our coast. Only a few corrected barometric readings were lower
than 29, and the lowest pressure was probably not lower than 28.9,
although lower readings were observed a few days later off the
Grand Banks.
The chart for 7 A.M., March 12, showed the line or trough with
isobars closely crowded together southward of Block Island, but
still of a general elliptical shape, the lower portion of the line swing-
ing eastward toward Bermuda, and carrying with it violent squalls
of snow and hail far below the 35th parallel. The high land of
Cuba and Santo Domingo prevented its effects from reaching the
Caribbean Sea, although it was distinctly noticed by a vessel south
of Cape Maysi, in the Windward Channel. The isotherm of 33°
reached from central Georgia to the coast below Norfolk, and
thence out into the Atlantic to a point about one hundred miles
south of Block Island. Farther north, it ran inshore of Cape Cod,
explaining the fact that so little snow, comparatively, fell in Rhode
Island and south-eastern Massachusetts.
By next morning the storm was beginning to decrease in sever-
ity; and the chart shows that westerly winds and low tempera-
tures had spread over a wide tract of ocean below the 4oth paral-
lel, while over the ocean north of that parallel the prevailing winds
were easterly. The lower storm-centre was now in about latitude
40° north, longitude 39° west, with a pressure of 29.30; and the
other a little distance south of a line from Nantucket to Block
Island, barometer 29, the isobars extending in a general easterly and
westerly direction. The delay of the storm off the coast, and its
rapid increase of energy, had been shown in the most marked man-
ner by the fluctuations of the barometer at land-stations and
aboard vessels, and the barometer diagram was referred to by way
of illustration.
March 14 the storm off Block Island had almost died away, with
light variable winds and occasional snow-squalls; the other centre
was about two hundred miles south-east from Sable Island. The
great wave of low barometer had overspread the entire western
portion of the North Atlantic, with unsettled, squally weather from
Labrador to the Windward Islands. The area of high pressure in
296 ‘
advance had moved eastward, to be felt over the British Isles from
the 17th to the 21st of the month, and after it a rapid fall of the
barometer. The isotherm of 32° reached from the southern coast
of North Carolina well offshore, thence northward to the coast of
Maine, and from central Maine eastward across Cape Breton
Island and southern Newfoundland. From the south-eastern to
the north-western portion of the chart, the shades of color showed
a difference of temperature of more than 80° (from above 70° to
below—10°); but such great differences of temperature and press-
ure could not last long, and the normal conditions were gradually
restored.
ELECTRICAL SCIENCE.
Atmospheric Electricity.
THE London Electricéan contains an abstract of a paper by Prof.
L. Weber which is of interest. He erected two insulated conduct-
ors on the top of the Riesengebirge; but he says, that, curiously
enough, since they have been put up, they have never been struck
by lightning, although before their erection lightning-flashes were
continually occurring. He also made some kite and balloon experi-
ments, in connection with which he goes at considerable length
into the question of the effect of the conducting-string in altering
the electrical condition of the circumjacent air layers, and also con-
siders the effects due to a long conductor completely insulated from
the earth, and without discharging-points ; a similar conductor,
with slight power of discharge along its whole length ; an insulated
conductor, with strong discharge-power (e.g., a flame) at the up-
per end; and other similar and more complicated cases. His kite-
string was really a steel wire. The discharge-points of the kite
consisted of 400 needle-points. In other cases he had the tails of the
kite made of silver paper for the same purpose. The potential was
measured by the length of sparks; the current, with a galvanom-
eter. The latter varied in general from .o7 to 2.5 micro-ampéres.
The potential varied generally from 3,000 to 10,000 volts. When
thick clouds were overhead, there were no appreciable sparks, the
strongest sparks being obtained when the zenith was either quite
clear, or when cumulo-stratus clouds appeared. With potentials of
11,000 and 20,000 volts, currents of 4 and 8 micro-ampéres were
obtained.
INCANDESCENT LAMPS WITH ALTERNATING AND DIRECT
CURRENTS. — Professors Ayrton and Perry have carried on a
series of experiments to determine whether the efficiency of incan-
descent electric lamps is the same when supplied with alternating
currents and with direct currents. The following table gives the
results of measurements on four different lamps : —
Watts per Candle.
No. of Experi- White Light.
Lamp.
ments made.
Continuous. Alternating.
I 20 3-953 3-033
Green Light. Red Light.
Continuous. Alt. Continuous.| Alt.
2 19 2.597 2.534 3.100 3-100
3 20 2.935 2.966 3-254 3-164
4 16 2.900 3-073 3-504 | 3-477
E |
Mean of last three experiments... 2.811 2.857 3.286 3-247
Continuous. Alternating.
Mean of all results............ .... 3-049 3.0497
These results show, that, as far as the economy of the lamp is con-
cerned, the efficiency of the two systems is about thesame. What
SOLE NGE.
[Vou. XI. No. 281
the life of the lamp would be with alternating currents is a matter
which has yet to be decided. Considering the rapidity with which
small wires respond in temperature to changes in current, it might
be, when the period of the alternating current is not extremely
rapid, that the filament of a lamp supplied by such a current would
be at times at a much higher temperature than the average, at
other times at a lower temperature. If this were the case, we
would expect that the life of a lamp supplied in this way would be
less than that of the same lamp fed by a continuous current. With
300 reversals a second, however, the temperature would vary but
little, and there is no reason that the life of the lamp should not be
the same with continuous and alternating currents.
POLARIZATION OF PLATINUM PLATES. — Mr. C. H. Draper
has experimented on the electro-motive force of polarization be-
tween platinum plates immersed in dilute sulphuric acid, for differ-
ent strengths of current passing between the plates, and with dif-
ferent temperatures. It is well known, that, if an electric current
be sent between such plates, an electro-motive force of polarization
is produced, in a direction opposite to that of theimpressed electro-
motive force, and of a value something in the neighborhood of
one and a half volts. Mr. Draper tried to find if this opposing
electro-motive force was independent of the current and tempera-
ture, and, if not, in what way it varies with them. The conclusions
at which he arrives are as follows: 1. The opposing electro-motive
force of polarization which arises in cells when at work depends on
the value of the current passing through them when that current is
below a certain value, increasing, but more and more slowly, with the
current; 2. There is a maximum value of the polarization regarded
only as a function of the current strength, beyond which any in-
crease in the strength of the current has no effect upon it; 3. The
electro-motive force of polarization varies with temperature, its
value decreasing about one per cent for a rise of temperature of
406.
ELECTRIC MINING ROAD AT LYKENS.— Among the interest-
ing applications of electricity to mining-work, the electric road in
the coal-mines at Lykens, Penn., is one of the most successful. It
has been pointed out in this journal that electricity offers especial
advantages for use at mines where fuel is scarce and water-power
of easy access, as in the silver and other mines in our Western
territory; but, besides the decreased cost of fuel, the ease with
which electric motors can be used in almost any position, under
conditions that steam-engines could not meet, makes electric trans-
mission still more valuable. In coal-mines the cost of fuel is, of
course, a small item ; but the greater safety, efficiency, and flexi-
bility of a system of electrical distribution, as compared with a
number of steam-engines, give it an advantage which must soon be
recognized. In the Lykens Valley Mines there has been used for
some time an electric-motor car to take the place of mules for
hauling cars from the mine. The length of the road is 6,300 feet ;
the weight of the locomotive, 15,000 pounds ; the largest load it is
capable of handling, 150 tons; the speed, 6 to 8 miles perhour. A
second road on the same general plan is being equipped for the
same company. The system employed is the Schlesinger.
DESIGNING DyNAMO-ELECTRIC MACHINES. — Until very re-
cently the designing of dynamo-electric machinery was an em-
pirical matter. The practice was to roughly guess, from the
dimensions of some similar machine, about what the dimensions
should be to give the required output, and, after the dynamo was
built, to change the number of revolutions or the winding of the
-field-magnets until the required conditions were fulfilled. Some-_
times even this would not suffice to bring the machine to its output,
in which case another was built. In the last two years the papers
of Mr. Kapp and Dr. Hopkinson, together with the growing habit
of treating a magnetic circuit in the same way that ordinary electric
circuits are treated, introducing the idea of magnetic resistance,
have greatly increased the certainty with which dynamos may be
designed. In fact, from experiments on one machine of a type, we
can design another of the same type to give any required output,
with considerable accuracy. While this is not generally recognized
in this country, it soon will be, and a great deal of expense and
energy will be saved; besides which, a consideration of the mag-
netic resistance of various parts of the magnetic circuit of adynamo
JUNE 22, 1888. |
should improve the designs of machines now being built. The
best dimensions to give the different parts of any dynamo is a per-
fectly definite problem, involving, besides questions of electrical
efficiency, questions of the cost of the iron and wire andlabor. How-
ever, the problem can be solved, and each maker of dynamos
should have it solved. Ina recent paper, Professors Ayrton and
Perry have considered the magnetic circuit of dynamo machines,
and have arrived at some important conclusions. Considering the
resistance of the magnetic circuit, they find, that, when a machine
is working at its best permanent output, its iron magnetic resist-
ance plus the air magnetic resistance of the clearance is equal to
the air magnetic resistance of the space on the outside of the arma-
ture occupied by the winding. The paper of Professors Ayrton
and Perry, with those above mentioned, will greatly aid in the
improvement of dynamo-electric machinery.
MENTAL SCIENCE.
The Relative Legibility of the Small Letters.
READING is one of the most widespread of modern activities, and
the endless multiplication of books and cheap editions makes a
study of the factors of this process of great importance. In the
end the process reduces to the differentiation of black or colored
marks on a white or colored surface. ‘Black on white’ is current
as an expression for clearness, leaving the question of the shapes of
the letters as the important one. Inasmuch as the Roman alpha-
bet is in use for the chief languages of civilization, and a large ma-
jority of the characters are formed by the small letters, the investi-
gation of the forms of these letters is naturally the point of prime
value. If by any means we can make the reading of these letters
an easier task, the improvement, however minute, when multiplied
by the number of times the letter is read, will be very great. This
is, however, not the only consideration. Tint and quality of paper,
length of lines and spaces between them, the size of the letters and
their distances from one another, —all affect the legibility. The
end to be aimed at is to attain “the greatest legibility to the
square inch,” with due regard to taste and economy. The solution
of this problem has been experimentally attempted by Dr. Javal
and by Dr. Cattell, and has recently been again studied with im-
proved apparatus by Mr. E.C. Sanford (Amerzcan Fournal of Psy-
chology, May, 1888).
The first method of obtaining an order of legibility of the letters
‘consisted in measuring the distances at which they could just be
read. The letters were fastened to the edge of a rotating disk, and
were viewed through a square hole of 2 centimetres, in a black
screen placed in front of the disk. Test-type letters of a clear
bold pattern were used, the short letters being about 1.8 and the
long letters about 2.2 millimetres high. The whole apparatus was
mounted on runners sloping upwards from the floor at an angle of
about fourteen degrees, and could be moved to any distance from
the eye by pulling an endless cord. y
The first method of these distance-tests consisted in showing the
letters at a fixed distance for the whole alphabet, and noting the
number of times each letter was rightly and wrongly named, as
well as the letters with which it was liable to be confused. An-
other fixed distance is then chosen, and the test repeated. The
result, with five subjects and the letters at distances varying by 10
centimetres from about 1.5 to 3.2 metres, was as follows, the num-
bers expressing the percentage of cases in which the letters were
correctly read : —
Mt, 90.9 U, 71.0 x, 63.0 n, 46.2
w, 88.1 k, 70.9 a, 60.8 é, 46.2
S, 84.4 b, 70.4. Z, 60.6 6, 45.1
PD, 84.3 Y, 70.4 Z, 58.6 0, 44.9
g, 80.9 h, 69.9 u, 55.2 2, 34.1
ROU @, 68.3 5, 53-0
Vid© £, 68.2 Z, 46.5
These percentages are based on about three hundred answers for
each letter, the preferred letter being counted as the only answer in
cases of doubt between two or more letters.
From the same record we can obtain an order of the liability of
the letters to confusion and the chief causes of confusion. This
SCIENCE.
297
order is substantially the same as the former, and would be still
more closely like it were it founded on precisely the same data. The
order, with the letters most likely to be confused with them, as well
as the percentages of cases in which the confusion occurred, are
given below : —
m with w, 52. A with 6, 51.
GQ # U, 53. oe Ey NO) e556 UG
fp) BF dls Gh & SOS Fa ALB 5; 13%,
Sf ES Lela GS a, TIL GA, As
ie, 0 Op DEX. Cie ZS OF e703, OF
GE fe Boy, DB & Gh iS oF Ds,
SA b; 2D 5 jy Pile BoB © Yes
CM cM TOS: Be AO
yeas Ole GB 8 Tay alii
BP Og, Be) CHE CWAOs
FNM KPT hee, STO Bi FE ANG) S GAS Gh, WO,
© [by ai. GME By NB Qs 233%.
(Zoe carey Qs We Bile 2 Bey,
Mr. Sanford also tested the letters by setting them so far away
that they could not be read, and then having the subject slowly
draw them near until he could read them; in general, recording
both the distance at which the subject would first hazard a guess,
and the distance at which he felt confident that he had correctly
read the letter. Here differences in eyesight of the subjects tested
make average results meaningless, but the order for any one sub-
ject agrees fairly well with that obtained by the other test. If the
letters be divided into three groups of eight, ten, and eight,— calling
those in the first group good, those in the second fair, and in the
third poor, — all the orders agree in making w, #, g, good; 4 and
x, fair; and 2, 0,c¢,5, e, poor: and the balance of the evidence
goes to make the good letters, w, , 7, 2, v, y,7, the ten fair ones,
h, 1, a, g, k, 6, x, l,n, u,; and the eight poor ones, a, ¢, Z, 2, 0, ¢, S,
and e.
By an ingenious apparatus a dark box in which one of the letters
was set could be illuminated for a very minute yet accurately
measurable time, and the proportion of cases in which each letter
could be correctly named when seen for a definite fraction of asec-
ond would again measure its relative legibility. The letters were
exposed for times varying from .0013 to .o04 of a second, and each
letter was shown about two hundred times. A table comparable
with that for distance is given below : —
m, 82. Pp, 61. h, 47. Nt, 34.
W, 73. k, 61. 4, 43. e, 33.
d, 67. Shy Seo 4, 42. SOT
g, 66. b, 52. Z, 39. 6, 26.
Y, 63. Z, 49. 0, 39. Ey Dey.
y, 62. z, 48. u, 38.
J, Ol. £, 47. a, 35.
The order of legibility by the two methods agrees very well, and
yields the important conclusion that the letters read at the greatest
distance are also the letters most rapidly recognized at an ordinary
distance. The order for the two methods, as well as that found
by Dr. Cattell by a different mode of time-measurements, are :—
Order for time, mwudguyyp kfblighrat ouanescz
Order for distance, wmgpuyf hrdgkbxlnu atizocse
Order for time (Cattell), adkinghbpw uljtuzrofn axyelgcs
It so happens, that, of the eight letters most fully represented in
a full font of type, three (e, a, s) are the very letters that all the
tests agree in regarding as the worst, and six (¢, @, s, 9, Z, 2) are
among those regarded as poor by two of the results.
Among the deductions formed from this study are, that the con-
centration of differentia is an important aid to clearness, while the
lack of it leads to confusion. Thus, 4, d@, Z, g, are all made of a
straight stem and a loop, and yet are easily distinguished (except
that 6 is confused with %); while g and a, though having few
points in common with other letters, are confused with several.
The group of confusables (e, 0, c) should be differentiated, the c
being left wide open, and some other form, such as the Greek e, or
an E with square corners, substituted for e+ 2, 2,a, should be sim-
ilarly treated; wz, a, 2, having their openings kept well open, and a
changed perhaps to an inverted v , s, too, needs reform, and a shape
2098
like / was found to have several advantages. Though not final,
these observations show what letters are good, and to a certain ex-
tent why they areso; they similarly point out those that need reform,
and suggest the direction in which reform should take place, and,
quite as important, furnish us with a method of accurately testing
the advantages of any system of letters that may be proposed.
One remark should be added. It is, that the legibility of the
letter is not altogether an objective factor, but depends on the fa-
miliarity of the letters to the person reading them. Just as it has
been shown that we are not as likely to name or write one number
as another when told to name a number, so the letters are not
equally present to our minds ; and certain letters will be more often
recognized or confused because we more constantly have them in
mind. The same process operates against the comparison of a new
form of letter with a conventional form; for the new one, not be-
ing familiar, is less likely to be recognized because more rarely
present to the consciousness of the subject. Similarly, if the sub-
ject is informed that a certain letter is no longer to be shown, the
very same impression that would have led him to pronounce in
favor of the omitted letter will now have a different effect. In the
experiments a similar result, due to the omission of a certain letter
without the knowledge of the subject, was observed.
NOTES ON HyPNOTISM.!— Dr. A. Dichas has made a detailed
study of the memory in the hypnotic state, and summarizes his
main conclusions somewhat as follows: (1) during the hypnotic
sleep the subject remembers the experiences of his waking life as
well as of previous hypnoses ; (2) in hypnotism there is often an
exaltation of the memory, and at times a change in its content,
leading to the assumption of a foreign personality ; (3) the memory
of what has been going on during hypnosis is usually lost, it can
often be revived by a simple suggestion, and at times the memory
of a suggested hallucination may linger on, and influence the wak-
ing condition ; (4) the operator can at his will have any of the acts
of the hypnotic state remembered or forgotten by making this a
part of asuggestion; (5) suggestion seems to be largely explicable as
unconscious memory. —— Dr. Cybulski has studied the power of
hypnotic subjects to hypnotize themselves. He finds that such
subjects strongly imagine for a minute or less that the operator
commands them to go to sleep, and the desired result ensues.
Furthermore, if the subject, on going to sleep, imagines himself
controlled by a certain person, then, even though another sent him
to sleep, he will be subject to the former, and not to the operator.
These observations show the importance of the subjective element
in the process of hypnotism, and indicate the method by which the
subject unconsciously takes suggestions and acts upon them.
Dr. Berkhan has applied hypnotism to the amelioration of the
hearing of the deaf. He tested the hearing of nine deaf boys, and,
after hypnotizing them, spoke to them and had various noises
made before them. The hearing of four of them was found to be
improved, and the improvement is reported as still persisting after
eighteen months.
HEALTH MATTERS.
Alcoholic Trance.
DR. T. D. CROTHERS of Hartford, Conn., at the recent meeting
of the American Medical Association at Cincinnati, read an inter-
esting paper entitled ‘Alcoholic Trance: its Medico-Legal Rela-
tions.’ In discussing this subject he said that the statements of
prisoners that they had no memory or recollection of the crime, or
the circumstances associated with it, are not often doubtful excuses
to avoid punishment. Certain physiological conditions, supported
by clinical facts, indicate beyond all question that such statements
are often psychological truths.
In somnambulism the person may go about, and do many intri-
cate acts, without consciousness or recollection of them afterwards.
In epilepsy distinct periods of unconsciousness occur. Acts unu-
sual and often violent follow, which are never remembered. In
mania these memory-blanks are common, and the person is an au-
tomaton, acting without any conscious influence of the present.
1 The reader is referred to an exhaustive review of works on hypnotism in the May
number of the American Fournal of Psychology.
SCIENCE.
[VoLr. XI. No. 28%
These are familiar illustrations of some unknown pathological and
psychological states of the brain, in which memory is suspended or
cut off, and the operations of the mind go on without realization of
the surroundings or the influence of experience. This is some ob-
scure form of psychological palsy, in which the person has no rec-
ollection of his acts during this time.
From the many clinical studies of cases which have been made,
the following general conclusions seem to be sustained : —
1. Alcoholic trance is not an unusual condition in inebriety. The
victim is literally an automaton, and acts without memory or con-
sciousness of passing events, —a state which may last from a few
minutes to several days.
2. It is distinct from epilepsy, hysteria, or any known forms of
mania, and is found associated with some unknown condition fol-
lowing alcoholic poisoning, continuously or at intervals.
3. This condition is probably one of brain-exhaustion, followed
by a lowering of consciousness till events are no longer clearly re-
membered; or a suspension of nerve-force in certain directions,
closely allied to paralysis of certain brain-functions: hence there are
profound disturbances of brain-centres, and impaired and lessened
responsibility.
Dr. Crothers has obtained the records of a large number of trance
cases, and his paper gives many of these in detail.
One group of trance cases seems never to do any thing outside a
natural, accustomed order of every-day life. Thus, a farmer in
this state goes on with his regular work. A physician continues
to visit patients, and a railroad-conductor attends to all his usual
duties, without any memory of these states. A second group of
trance cases seems prominent by unusual acts and thoughts. Thus,
a banker in this state left his regular work, and went round deliv-
ering tracts in the lower parts of the city. A quiet, retiring man
became vociferous, bold, and aggressive. A peaceful man was
combative, a truthful man untruthful, and a conscientious, re-
ligious man was treacherous and sceptical. Later, these events
were perfect blanks in their memory. In a third group of trance
cases, some unusual line of conduct seems to grow out of the sur-
roundings unexpectedly, or some old buried thought or conception
comes to the surface. Thus, a clergyman insists on riding with
the engineer on the engine. A sceptical physician takes part in a
prayer-meeting. A merchant goes round threatening to kill an old
schoolmaster who punished him in boyhood. A wealthy man has
a new will written, disposing of his property differently every time.
In the two last groups criminal cases occur most frequently, al-
though some very remarkable-instances have been reported under
the first group. In a little work entitled ‘ Alcoholic Somnambu-
lism,’ Professor Jerusky of St. Petersburg mentions the case of a
chief of police, who was an inebriate, ordering the arrest and exe-
cution of two suspected Jews. His orders were carried out in
form, but not in reality. A day later he recovered from his trance
state, and had no recollection of the past : he had total amnesia of
this act. Another case is cited of an officer who ordered a house
burned down, on the supposition that its inmates were preparing
to destroy his command. Two days later he awoke with no mem-
ory of this event, and could give no reason for the act.
In these cases the somnambulistic act was along the line of his
usual work, and performed without the slightest consciousness of
its nature or consequences.
The criminal trance cases may be divided into two classes, one
of which seems to have no history of criminality previous to the
commission of the crime. They are inebriates of active neurotic
temperament, who have occupied reputable stations in life, and
belong to the better classes. All crime is unusual with them, and
apparently grows out of the alcoholic poisoning. The second class
are the low neurotics and defectives by birth and education. They
have a history of irregularities of life and conduct that seems to
prepare the way for criminal acts, and probably are more subject
to the trance state because of defective heredity.
All these cases in court are unrecognized. A degree of reason-
able conduct up to the time of the crime, and after it, is assumed
to be evidence of knowledge of the surroundings and consequences
of the act. No fact of inebriety, or statement of no recollection, is
thought to lessen in any way the responsibility of the act.
Clinical facts indicate that in all cases of inebriety there is a de-
JUNE 22, 1888.] -
fective brain-power and general perversion of healthy activity ;
also the door is open for many varied nerve-changes and degrees
of brain instability, which always give a doubt to the sanity of the
victim. The fact of being an inebriate points to an unsound mind,
and more or less incapacity to act or think normally.
When the trance state is determined, the actual responsibility,
or cognizance of right or wrong, is suspended: the person is a
mental waif, without compass or chart. No evidence of premedi-
tation or apparent judgment in his actions can change this fact.
Any special act may spring from some impression laid up in the
past, which, when conscious reason is withdrawn, takes on form
and semblance. The real condition of the mind is always more or
less concealed. Where the case is a periodical inebriate, with dis-
tinct free intervals of sanity, a possibility of concealed or masked
epilepsy should always be considered. Epilepsy is likely to be
present, or to follow from some organic tendency or favoring con-
ditions. When this defence of no memory of the act is made, the
case should receive a thorough medical study before any conclu-
sion of responsibility can be reached.
The present treatment of inebriates in courts is nothing less than
legal barbarism, founded on error and superstition. The oft-re-
peated statement that ‘drunkenness is no excuse for crime,” as-
sumes a definition of inebriety that has no support from scientific
study and the teaching of facts.
Inebriety in all cases must be regarded as a disease, and the
patient forced to use the means of recovery. Like the victim of an
infectious disease, his personal responsibility is increased, and the
community with him are bound to make the treatment a necessity.
The following propositions sum up many of the facts men-
tioned : —
1. Inebriety must be recognized as a condition of legal irrespon-
sibility to a certain extent, depending on the character and circum-
stances of the case, and the general mental integrity displayed.
2. All unusual acts or crime committed by inebriates, either in a
state of partial coma or alleged amnesia, which come under legal
recognition, should receive thorough study by competent physicians
before the legal responsibility can be determined.
3. When the trance state is established beyond doubt, he is both
legally and practically irresponsible for his acts during this period,
and each should be measured by the facts of its individual history.
4. Inebriety is a disease requiring physical means in the treat-
ment. Society demands of the patient that he use diligence to re-
cover ; and, so far as he may neglect this, both himself and com-
munity are responsible.
5. It is the duty of the State to provide asylums, and encourage
private enterprise to furnish the means and appliances for restora-
tion.
6. Lastly, standing on this borderland, and looking back at the
monstrous injustice and legal crime that is daily committed in the
punishment of inebriates, who are practically insane, I am con-
vinced that the time has come for a revolution of sentiment and
practice, in which both the inebriate and the community must be
held responsible, not alone for his acts or the consequences of them,
but the causes and conditions which have developed in this way ;
then the victim will be forced to avail himself of every means for
prevention, restoration, and recovery.
A NEw MILITARY RaTION.— All the garrisons within the
limit of the Seventh German Army Corps, we learn from the dZed-
zcal Herald, have now been provided with larger samples of the new
article of food which is in future to form the so-called ‘iron ration’
of the meninthefield. It isa peculiar kind of bread, in the shape of
small cubes the size of a chocolate-drop, made of fine wheat-bread,
strongly spiced, and calculated to keep for a long time. When
taken into the mouth, it quickly softens, and is both palatable and
nutritious. It is chiefly intended for forced marches, when there is
no time for camping and cooking.
WOUNDS OF THE ABDOMEN. — Modern surgery, aided by
antisepsis, has enabled syrgeons to accomplish results which,
twenty-five years ago, would have been deemed impossible. This
is in no department more marked than in abdominal surgery.
While formerly a wound of the abdomen, either from a gunshot or
a stab, was considered almost necessarily fatal, at the present day
S\CIUBINICIS.
29G
many lives are saved by an operation, which consists in opening the
abdomen, tying every blood-vessel that may have been lacerated,
and sewing up any wound which may have been made in the intes-
tines. One of the most difficult parts of the operation consists im
finding the intestinal wound. Dr. Senn of Milwaukee proposes to
inject per rectum hydrogen-gas, which, he has demonstrated in
dogs, finds its way through the entire length of the intestine; and,
if an opening exist, the gas will escape, and can be detected.
BOOK -REVIEWS.
By F.
12°.
Three Introductory Lectures on the Science of Thought.
Max MULLER. Chicago, The Open Court Publ. Co.
THESE lectures were delivered last year at the Royal Institution
in London, and are intended as an introduction to the subject of
which they treat, and which the author has dealt with more largely-
in his work on ‘ The Science of Thought.’ Many writers before
Professor Miiller had maintained that language is necessary as an
instrument of thought, so that we could not think without it; but
he goes much further than this, and maintains that language and’
thought are identical. This means, if taken literally, that the word
‘orange, when I pronounce it, is identical with the idea of an
orange which I have in my mind. When stated in this concrete
form, the absurdity of the theory is manifest, but Professor Miiller
endeavors to escape the absurdity by explaining that the word he
identifies with the idea is not the word as actually uttered by the
voice and heard with the bodily ear, but the word as heard men-
tally, or in imagination. This, however, does not remove the dif-
ficulty ; for the word as heard mentally is not a word at all, but
only the idea of a word; so that, when stated in this way, the
theory means that the idea of a word is identical with the idea of
the thing that it stands for.
Such, then, is the absurdity inherent in Professor Miiller’s theory ;.
nor does he succeed in removing it in any way: on thecontrary, he
aggravates it by the addition of others. For instance: in his pref-
ace he undertakes to tell us how language first arose; and in so.
doing he gives himself away to start with. According to his theory
of thought, we cannot have a concept, or general idea, until we
have a word to symbolize it; and he ought, therefore, to account
for the origin of language without assuming any concepts what-
ever. We need not here repeat his whole account of the matter ;
but he maintains, that, ‘‘before we can get a single conceptual
word, we have to pass through at least five stages,” and the first
of these stages is ‘‘ consciousness of our own repeated acts.” Now,
this consciousness involves at least four concepts: (1) the concept
of an act, since it is not a single act that we are conscious of, but a
series of acts; (2) the concept of number, or of many as distin-
guished from one; (3) the concept of repetition ; (4) the concept
of causation, since the acts are regarded as our acts, that is, as
caused by us. Thus, according to-Professor Miiller’s view of the
origin of language, we must have had at least four concepts before:
we had a single word; and, if this is so, what becomes of the
theory that we cannot have concepts without words? As another
example of Professor Miiller’s reasoning, take his remarks about
the thinking of animals. Some one had remarked that animals.
think, to a certain extent at least, and that this proves that thought
is not identical with language, to which Professor Miiller replies in
this curious way: “ If we mean by thought that mental function
which has its outward sign and embodiment in language, we must
say that animals do not think as we think, namely, 27 words. They
may think in their own way. ... But I cannot allow that they
think, zf we define thinking by speaking.” A more ludicrous ex-
ample of reasoning in a circle it would be impossible to find.
Professor Miiller’s theory is such a one as we often get when a
scientific specialist undertakes to deal with the problems of philos-
ophy. Such a man is apt to think that all philosophical problems.
can be solved by the methods and principles of his science; and
the consequence is a great deal of unphilosophical reasoning.
Thus, we have had mathematicians who thought that mathematics.
was the key to philosophy ; and in our own time the biologists have
put forth similar claims; and now comes Professor Max Miiller,
maintaining that philosophy is only a problem of language. But
300
philosophy is broader than any science, broader than all sciences
together, and cannot be comprehended under the formulas of any
of them.
Bibliographie des Modernen Hypnotismus.
Berlin. 8°.
Von MAx DESSOIR.
TO realize the great activity in the study of hypnotism now pres-
ent in all parts of the civilized world, nothing could be more ser-
viceable than this bibliography. There are included no less than
eight hundred titles ; and these are devoted to the modern, scien-
tific phases of the study alone, excluding references to the history
of the topic, as well as the works of those who wrote when the
topic was in a pseudo-scientific stage. By this plan seven-eighths
of all the writings catalogued fall in the period since 1880. The
increase of interest in the topic since 1880 can be read off from the
increase of publications year by year. In 1880 there were published
14 works pertinent to this bibliography ; in 1881, 9; in 1882, 39;
in 1883, 40; in 1884, 78; in 1885, 71; in 1886, 131; in 1887, 205;
in 1888 (January to April), 71. The countries in which the actiy-
ity in hypnotic studies is greatest are likewise indicated by the lan-
guages in which the publications are issued: 473 are in French;
Io2 are in English, of which 4o come from America; 88 in Italian;
69 in German; 22 in Danish; 16 in Spanish : 12 in Russian; 6 in
Dutch; 4 in Swedish; 3 in Norwegian; 2 each in Polish and
Hungarian ; 1 each in Portuguese and Roumanian. The classifica-
tion of the topics is a very convenient one. We have first the gen-
eral works (191 in number); then those with a more special medi-
cal interest (of which there are 199); next those on magnetism
(36), on the physiology of hypnotism (62), on its psychological and
pedagogical aspects (85), on its forensic aspects (43); and, finally,
sections on telepathy (81), mesmerism (58), and miscellaneous (46).
Under each section the titles are arranged by date of issue, and
cross-references to other sections are given. There are also ref-
erences to the numbers treating of the works of the Nancy school,
of the Paris school, the question of simulation, of suggestion, of the
practice of hypnotism and its theory. No trouble has been spared
to make the bibliography convenient; and, to enable the author to
maintain its completeness, he requests that books and articles on
the topic be sent to him at W. Kéthenerstr. 27, Berlin, Germany.
Die Ekstasen des Menschen.
by Dr. R. Teuscher.
Von PAUL MANTEGAZZA. Tr.
Jena. 8°.
LIKE many of his eminent countrymen, such as Lombroso, Mor-
selli Sergi, Buccola, Vignoli, Mantegazza belongs to the psycholo-
gical school of naturalists, and devotes his main efforts to bringing
into the domain of science groups of facts that have hitherto been
left to grow wild in the open road of speculation, or have been per-
versely cultivated at the hands of mercenary pseudo-scientists.
His three works treating from various points of view, but with the
anthropological, pedagogical, and psychological interests ever up-
permost, of the sexual relations of mankind, indicate one phase of
his labors, while another is suggested by his work on facial expres-
sion. He combines with his scientific interests a deep feeling for
nature, both in the phenomena of land and sea and in that more
specially inviting subject conveniently termed ‘human nature;’
and this is brought to the front in his essay on the art of being
happy (Sczezce, Dec. 9, 1887). Add to this that the author is a
wide traveller, a careful reader, and an excellent stylist, and it is
not difficult to understand that whatever he writes is likely to be
interesting reading. In the present volume this expectation would
not be disappointed. Under the head of human ecstasies are here
included all those many extremes of emotion that lead to the for-
getting of self, and in their extreme forms to a condition closely
allied with the phenomena of hypnotism. It is this connection that
lends an especial interest to the study of these phenomena, and res-
cues many apparently incredible and inexplicable narratives, espe-
cially in the history of religious devotion, from the scepticism with
which they have been regarded. Moreover, as scientific psychology
widens its domains more and more, it finds a large class of phe-
nomena capable of only such a lenient and elastic treatment as are
the classification and description of diseases. At best one can
empirically describe and diagnose, leaving it to the future to gain a
clearer insight and to deduce important generalizations. By
SCrENGE:
[Vort. XI. No. 281
singling out the ecstasies of mankind as the heading of a chapter
in descriptive psychology, Mantegazza has done a real service to
that science, which he himself acknowledges is still in its ‘prat-
tling’ stages.
Rudimentary forms of minor ecstasies are to be found in ani-
mals. There are not only love ecstasies, but, as those passionate
delights in activity visible in an unchained dog indicate, a motor
type of ecstasy; while the admiration of the bower-bird for its
work of art, or the self-admiration of the strutting peacock, shows
the beginnings of an zsthetic absorption. In man, and more espe-
cially in the man of civilization, the forms of ecstasy are many.
We see not only ecstatic states brought about by the exercise of
normal physiological functions, but even more by extreme devotion
to artificially acquired possessions. Under the first head we con-
template the all-absorbing love of a mother for her child leading to
deeds of astounding self-sacrifice, and to moments of rapturous
adoration ; we witness, though more rarely, the devotion of child
to parent, remaining as a rule on a more respectful, contemplative
stage; we read of the mutual love and devotion of brothers and
sisters, of the soul-stirring compact of friend with friend that
played so large a 70/e in the friendship of classic times; we must
even add the instances of Platonic love so often decried as impos-
sible, but warmly defended by Mantegazza, to the crowning passion
of romantic love, if we are to grasp the broad extent of the
ecstatic horizon. The most interesting as well as the most com-
pletely described ecstasies are those connected with religion.
These are most closely akin to the exaltations of love, and the
devotee often calls herself (for women are more prone to this than
men) the bride of her Saviour. Mantegazza confines his descrip-
tions to the ecstasies of Christian religionists, though he could
have found material in the history of all Oriental religions. St.
Theresa is the type of religious ecstatics, and the minute descrip-
tion of her own feelings and passions that she has left form a very
interesting psychological document. With her the deepest passion
was for a more intimate communion with the divine essence, —a
religious contemplation freed from the trammels of a sensuous life.
Of such a nature, too, were the ecstasies of Plotinus, by which his
philosophic insight was gained. This is the condition that leads to
mysticism, and it has been claimed that a similar state of super-
sensuous, dreamy abstraction follows the taking of certain drugs.
In another kind of religious ecstasy the passion for self-denial and
self-torture is uppermost. The feeling that every transgression,
however slight, must be absolved by inflicting pain, the feeling of
unworthiness, of being a sinful being, seizes the soul, and drives
the devotee onward to more and more intense tortures, until pain is
no longer felt and the body subjugated. Here occur such marvels
as the stigmata, or flowing of blood from definite regions of the skin,
in the shape of a cross, or from the hands and feet. The same
thing has within recent years been witnessed in very sensitive hys-
terical hypnotic subjects as the result of a suggestion, and thus in-
dicating what an extreme influence nervous states have over nor-
mally automatic, involuntary processes. The conditions of cata-
leptic rigidity, of trance that we now artificially induce, were seen in
religious ecstasy, and, according to the beliefs of the time, were
converted into cases of possession by evil spirits. Asceticism,
with hallucinations caused by fasting and fatigue, is another fertile
cause of religious ecstasy. All these instances deserve careful
study from all who would grasp the various forms in which mental
phenomena present themselves in nature. _
Patriotism may be so supreme a motive in a man’s life that it
acquires an ecstatic intensity, and in Mazzini our author finds such
an ecstatic. We must also condescend to enumerate under the
same head all the devotions of men to favorite pets. There are
real cases of ecstatic love of a master to his dog, his horse. Here,
too, belong all those hobbies and mania (crazes) that, according
to their nature, save the mind from ez#zz and inactivity, or blunt
the susceptibilities. The miser gloating over his gold, and the
book-collector over a musty treasure, are both in a minor form of
ecstasy. There remain a large class of high emotional and intel-
lectual ecstasies in which genius finds its sphere. The esthetic
raptures, whether addressed to the beauties of nature or of art, are
among the most real and ennobling, because they touch one of the
deepest chords of the human soul, and one that has ever responded
JUNE 22, 1888. }
to the advance of human culture. The ear, as well as, and even
more readily than, the eye, becomes the avenue by which ecstasy is
approached ; and the wonderful effects of martial strains, or the
deeply touching notes of the human voice, have always been among
the poet’s favorite themes. Ecstasies of thought, of contempla-
tion, are vouchsafed to the few. Kant declared that nothing so
filled him with awe as the starry heavens above and the moral law
within, thus indicating two approaches to ecstasy. The flights of
poetic imagination, creating worlds harmonious and beautiful, are
of a kindred nature. The swaying of the masses by the eloquence
of a born orator, who forgets himself and his hearers and feels
himself inspired for the occasion, is another phase of this same
ecstasy. The intoxication of power that so often leads to its abuse,
and has given rise to the phrase ‘insanity of power,’ is again a
type of ecstasy. Finally, all those moments of fruitful discovery
when the mysteries of nature are glimpsed, a new contribution to
human knowledge made, a novel train of thought begun, are mo-
ments of creative ecstasy. In every field of human activity there
are possibilities of greatness; and all these have a common
element, just as the views from all high mountain-peaks present a
close similarity. From the study of these ecstasies, we return with
a fuller appreciation of their grandeur and their value, with a reali-
zation of their dangers when diverted into morbid channels; we
realize, too, what a great vd/e they have played in human history ;
and they suggest that man cannot be more aptly described than by
defining him as an inspirable animal.
NOTES AND NEWS.
D. C. HEATH & Co. will publish shortly a translation of Paolo
Mantegazza’s ‘ Testa, a Book for Boys.’ It is a companion book
to De Amicis’ ‘Cuore.’ The translation will be made under the
supervision of Prof. L. D. Ventura of Boston, and of the Sauveur
Summer School of Languages. Cassell & Co. have nearly
ready a second edition of ‘ Yachts and Yachting.’ The original
work consisted of four papers, —‘ A History of American Yacht-
ing,’ by Capt. R. F. Coffin; ‘ The Mayflower and Galatea Races of
1886, by C. E. Clay; ‘American Steam-Yachting,’ by E. S. Jaf-
fray; and ‘British Yachting,’ by C. J. C. McAllister. These pa-
pers had one hundred and ten illustrations by F. S. Cozzens, com-
prising pictures of all the famous yachts of recent times. C. E.
Clay has now covered the subject from 1886 to date, and Mr. Coz-
zens has provided sixteen new cuts. The J. B. Lippincott Com-
pany have in press ‘An Elementary Treatise on Human Anatomy,’
by Joseph Leidy ; ‘A Cyclopzdia of Diseases of Children,’ by: Dr.
J. M. Keating ; ‘Animal Life of the Seashore,’ by Angelo Heilprin
in the International Scientific Series; and ‘A Popular History of
Music,’ by James E. Matthew, with one hundred and fifty illustra-
tions, consisting of portraits, musical instruments, facsimiles of rare
and early musical typography, etc. Frederick Warne & Co.
have in preparation ‘A Pictorial Natural History Library,’ in three
volumes, which will teach with more than a thousand illustrated pic-
tures the facts that children devour so greedily. —— W. B. Clarke
& Co. (successors to Clarke & Carruth), 340 Washington Street,
Boston, will publish shortly ‘Among the Theologies,’ by Hiram
Orcutt, LL.D. Ginn & Co. have just ready Benjamin Frank-
lin’s autobiography, with notes and a continuation of his life, by D.
‘H. Montgomery; ‘Topics in Ancient History,’ by Miss C. W.
Wood of Holyoke Seminary; ‘Arabian Nights,’ in their series of
Classics for Children; ‘ Czesar’s Army,’ a study of the military art
of the Romans in the last days of the Republic, by Harry Pratt
Judson of the University of Minnesota; ‘Descriptive Geometry,’
by Linus Faunce of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology;
‘Entrance Examination Papers,’ compiled by Dr. John S. White
of the Berkeley (New York) School; and questions prepared to
accompany Fiske-Irving’s ‘ Washington and His Country,’ as a help
to teachers using this as a text-book of United States history.
Scribner & Welford have just ready a volume entitled ‘ Princeto-
niana — Charles and A. A. Hodge, with Class and Table Talk of
Hodge the Younger,’ by a Scottish Princetonian, the Rev. C. A.
Salmond, which contains a full biography of Rev. Dr. Charles
Hodge (1797-1878), and of his son, the Rev. Dr. A. A. Hodge.
Excellent portraits of the two professors, as well as one of Dr.
SCIENCE.
301
McCosh, contribute to the attraction of this volume. They have
also just ready a volume on‘ Tropical Africa,’ by Henry Drum-
mond, who gives a remarkably interesting account of his recent
travels in Central Africa, with one or two chapters of natural his-
tory, and notes regarding the latest phases of the slave-trade and
African politics generally. They will shortly issue ‘ The Letters of
Frederica Sophia Wilhelmine, Margravine of Baireuth, and Voltaire.”
Harper & Brothers published on the 15th inst. ‘Stepniak’s’
last book, ‘The Russian Peasantry,’ for which it is claimed that it
is the most instructive and interesting work that has been produced
by this remarkable writer, and is written evidently with self-restraint.
They will soon issue in book form the practical house-keeping ar-
ticles which have been contributed to Harper's Bazar by Christine
Terhune Herrick, a daughter of Marion Harland. —~ The Chau-
tauquan for July gives the location of forty-three summer assem-
blies modelled after the original one at Chautauqua, N.Y., and an
outline of the work done in each. Of these assemblies, forty-one
are located in twenty-one different States and Territories of the
United States, one is in Canada, and one in England. The sessions
vary in length from three days to two months. In John Bogart’s
article on ‘ Railway Engineering Feats,’ in the July Scrzézer’s, will
be a full account of life in a pneumatic caisson, far below the sur-
face of the water, during the construction of bridge foundations.
— Nature states that the following were elected foreign mem-
bers of the Royal Society on Thursday, May 31: Prof. Edmund
Becquerel of Paris, distinguished for his researches on the effects
of light on bodies, especially with reference to phosphorescence ;
Prof. Hermann Kopp of Heidelberg, for his researches on atomic
volumes and boiling-points; Prof. Eduard F. W. Pfliiger of Bonn,
for his researches in physiology, especially in relation to irritability
of nerves, respiration, and animal heat; and Prof. Julius Sachs of
Wiirzburg, for his researches in botany, especially vegetable physi-
ology.
—A despatch from Brussels dated June 18 states that the Kon-
go officials here think that the report received from a messenger
from the Aruvimi was due to confusion regarding Ward’s journey.
Still they are anxious as to Stanley’s fate, chiefly because Emin Bey
had heard nothing of Ward, and had received almost positive con-
firmation of the hostility of tribes between the Aruvimiand Wadelai
from officers who had journeyed there. Several Belgian explorers.
offer to go in search of Stanley, but only by the Kongo route and
with a caravan of at most twenty men.
— The House Committee on Appropriations proposes to reduce
the field force of the Coast and Geodetic Survey from sixty-two to.
fifty-eight men.
— The commissioner of fish and fisheries has asked for an ap-
propriation of thirteen thousand dollars for the establishment and
maintenance of a fish-cultural station, under the United States Fish
Commission, in the Ozark region in south-western Missouri. The
commissioner says that the neighborhood of Neosho, Newton
County, Mo., affords favorable conditions for the establishment of
such a station.
—Mr. William Walter Phelps has introduced into Congress a
bill to purchase from Stephen Vail of Morristown, N.J., the original
telegraphic instrument, or recording receiver, invented by his father,
Alfred Vail, and used upon the first telegraphic line ever con-
structed,—that between Washington and Baltimore,—and to
transmit the first message ever sent : ‘“‘ What hath God wrought?”
The purchase of this instrument is strongly recommended by the
officers of the Smithsonian Institution. The price is ten thousand
dollars.
—In Sczence of March 26, 1886, our Vienna correspondent re-
ferred to the then newly invented gas-lamp of Dr. Auer of Wels-
bach, Austria. The principle of Dr. Auer’s lamp is no new one.
Every one knows the Drummond light, in which a cylinder of lime
is brought to incandescence by a burning mixture of hydrogen and
oxygen. But all lights of that character have failed to come into
commercial use, because the material to be acted on by the heat
has always been present in considerable mass, and has required
gas under pressure and a very high temperature to bring the mass.
302
to incandescence. In the Welsbach light, now on exhibition in
‘New York, the incandescent substance is used in an extremely
thin or attenuated form, requiring the minimum heat to produce
the maximum of light. The principle of the invention will be
understood when it is described as a hood or mantle of finely
‘divided but perfectly coherent refractory oxides of lanthanum,
zirconium, and yttrium round the flame of a Bunsen burner. The
damp has given satisfactory results so far.
— We learn from the Exgéneertng and Mining Journal that
‘the Alliance Aluminium Company has been formed in London,
England, with a capital of £500,000, for the purpose of manufac-
turing aluminium, sodium, and potassium. The company owns
the English, German, French, and Belgian patents of Professor
Netto for the reduction of aluminium from its compounds, and for
the manufacture of sodium and potassium; the processes of Mr.
‘Cunningham for the reduction of the above metals; a process for
the manufacture of artificial cryolite by the regeneration of its slags,
provisionally protected by the inventor, Mr. Forster, Lonesome
‘Chemical Works, Streatham; a process invented by Professor
Netto and Dr. Saloman, of Essen, Germany, by which this metal
‘can be raised to the highest standards of purity on a commercial
‘scale. Exhaustive experiments have been made at the works of
Krupp at Essen to test the practical value of the processes, and it
is stated that he has the means of making the metal in tons. In-
stead of beads or marbles, solid chunks of the purest aluminium
‘known, weighing from five pounds to one hundred pounds (accord-
ing to the size of the converter), are deposited at every fusion of
the ingredients, chief among which are sodium and cryolite. The
scompany has a contract with the owners of the cryolite-mines in
“Greenland to supply it with practically the entire output. It is
‘stated that the patents of the company enable it to manufacture it
-at considerably less than one shilling per pound.
— An interesting fact in the history of the movement for indus-
trial training in the public schools of Washington is its connection
~with Cooper Union, that unique institution of which New York is
sso justly proud. As already stated in Sczezce, industrial drawing,
including moulding in clay, and construction in card-board, etc., has
Jong been a feature of the Washington schools. The supervisor of
drawing, Mrs. S. E. W. Fuller, who for fifteen years has guided the
work, was trained in the Cooper Union in those early days when,
with an enthusiasm and thoroughness not excelled by later institu-
tions and a wise prevision of coming demands, it brought art and
industry into their proper relation as means and purposes of educa-
«tion.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
© * Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible.
-tx allcases 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 af
the journal.
The writer's name is
An Unusual Auroral Bow.
I was much interested in Mr. D. S. Kellicott’s communication in
your issue Of June 1, describing a peculiar form of northern lights ;
particularly so, as it was my fortune to witness a similar phenom-
enon in 1881. On July 2 of that year, the day on which President
Garfield was shot, at about 9.20 in the evening, faint streaks of
light were observed on the northern horizon. I then observed a
‘streak of cloud-like light ascending at about the east-south-east
horizon. Looking around, I saw a similar streak at an opposite
point. Ina short time these streaks blended into one in the zenith,
forming an arch overhead. There was a bend or crook in this
-arch; just at what point I do not remember, as I made no note of
it, but I think at or near the middle. Presently the streak began to
grow narrower ; then it changed and broadened again, until it be-
came wider than it was at first; then the southern edge resolved
itself into parallel bars at right angles with the arch; shortly after,
the northern edge resolved itself into similar bars, which moved
rapidly towards the west ; presently the bars at the southern edge
of the arch either vanished or blended with the others, and they
all glided swiftly by towards the west; the bars gradually became
fewer and fewer, until they could be seen only here and there
SCE (Cla:
[Vor. XI. No. 281
gliding along; and at last the whole arch faded entirely away.
During all this time the lights in the north had been shining, and
when I retired for the night they were still to be seen.
I have copied this description from notes which I took at the
time. I have seen other interesting auroras, but never have seen
the arch overhead since. FRANCIS H. ALLEN.
West Roxbury, Mass , June 13.
Concerning the Montville Serpentine.
THE statement made by your correspondent in your issue of June
15, regarding work done by me on the Montville, N.J., serpentine,
induces me to add a few additional particulars on the subject.
This I am the more inclined to do, since the paper giving the full
results of my work is as yet unpublished, but is awaiting its turn in
the Government Printing-Office.
The origin of serpentinous rocks, by a process of metasomatosis,
from the various members of the pyroxene group, is a matter by
no means new to petrographers in general, and has been noted by
Dana in the limestone-beds of Westchester County, N.Y., as well
as by Emmons and Cross in those of the Leadville region. None
of the cases, however, can compare in point of beauty with that at
Montville. Here, in a coarsely crystalline, highly magnesian
limestone, were originally embedded numerous large and small
spheroidal and lenticular masses of a gray or pure white mono-
clinic pyroxene approaching diopside in composition. These, through
a process of metasomatosis commencing on the outer surface, have
become converted wholly or in part into a very pure, though highly
hydrated, translucent green and light amber-yellow serpentine. In
the process of quarrying the limestone for flux, these nodules are
thrown out; and from the quarry dump have been gathered
samples showing most beautifully every stage of the change, from
that in which the serpentine exists as merely a thin coating, to that
in which all traces of the diopside have disappeared, and a solid
block of compact serpentine alone remains. The nodules vary in
size from the fraction of an inch to two or more feet in diameter.
I have as yet, however, never seen blocks of the serpentine more
than six or eight inches in greatest diameter. The process of
change must have been exceedingly slow and gradual, as the line
of demarcation is very sharp; so sharp, indeed, that at first glance
such an origin as I have attributed appears impossible. On ex-
posure to the weather, the serpentinous coating undergoes a
shrinkage, and breaks away from the unchanged nodule almost as
clean as the burr from a chestnut. Nodules in the museum col-
lections, which have been freed from their serpentinous coating,
have the appearance of some easily soluble substance, like lime-
stone, that has been suspended freely in a dilute acid until all its
angles and irregularities of surface have disappeared.
In my paper which is shortly to appear in the Proceedings of the
United States National Museum are plates showing the nodules
and the transition stages from diopside to serpentine, as shown in
thin sections under the microscope. I have gone into consider-
able detail in my description, not merely on account of the beauty
of the resultant serpentine, but because this is an unusually fine
illustration of the process of metasomatosis. The beautifully
slickensided surfaces, and other indications of the expansive force
generated during the process, are also very suggestive.
The readiness with which samples can be procured which show
in a single small specimen all stages, from perfectly fresh and un-
changed diopside to beautiful compact serpentine, makes the
material particularly valuable to teachers. The small size of the
serpentine blocks obtainable, together with the invariably fractured
condition of the mineral, renders it of practically no importance as
an ornamental stone. GEORGE P. MERRILL.
U.S. Nat. Mus., Washington, June 16.
Queries.
33. DIPHTHERIA CARRIED BY TURKEYS. — Referring to the
paragraph ‘Diphtheria carried by Turkeys,’ in Sczence for May
11, I beg to inquire if the disease among barnyard fowls known as
‘roup’ has been investigated as a germ disease, and its relations
with other animal orders (if it have any) made out or sought.
Wo IPs Wife
JUNE 22, 1888. |
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iv SCIENCE. [Vor. XI. No. 281
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ful only in the altogether improbable event of a wholesale conspiracy IS the Trustee of its Reserve Fu n d.
on the part of the management.” a
PAYMENT OF DEATH CLAIMS. It has accomplished all these results, paid all these claims,
“ We examined each of their claims separately. We saw the evi- | accumulated this emergency fund, paid all its expenses, and
dence upon which the claims were cut down in every case. We went acquired this splendid reputation, and furnished
into this matter very carefully, for the reason that the company’s ,
action with reference to those claims had occasioned wide discussion, Life Insu rance at Less than Ha if the Rates
and for the further reason that I myself had a certain degree of pre- CHARGED BY ITS HIGH-RATE RIVALS.
judice, which had been created by the very publicity which the Further information supplied upon application to any of the Man- ~
matter had received. I can say frankly that I did not find a single agers, General or Special Agents in the United States, England,
claim cut deeper than I myself would have cut it had I been sitting | Prance or Canada, or by applying at the Home Office, Potter Build-
in judgment upon it.” ‘‘We ascertained that the mortuary fund has ing, 38 Park Row, N.Y.
in no case been charged with more than the actual amount paid in A
compromise, the evidence being the correspondence of the item in SO Ae a oo Ge teas :
the account and the check indorsed by the beneficiary.” LOR, Vice-President.
j E. T. BRAMAN, Secretary.
HONESTY, PRUDENCE AND WISDOM. | N. W. BLOSS, Resident Vice-Pres. for Great Britain.
“ Now, as to your three questions regarding the honesty, prudence a W. BOWDEN, M.D., Medical Director.
and wisdom of the management. The members of the association | Hon. HENRY J. REINMUND, late Supt. Ins. Dept. of Ohio,
have been honestly dealt with; the management has been prudent in Comptroller.
contesting fraudulent claims, and it has been wise in one sense of SAMUEL A. ROBINSON, M.D., Chairman Investment Com.
the word certainly, and that is in seeing to it that a case was clear WILLIAM MILLER, Director of Agencies.
before it was adjusted.” ‘The management exercised due caution TAYLOR & PARKER, Attorneys ;
before settling claims. They acted in good faith toward survivors.” G. R. McCHESNEY, Adjuster.
“My judgment is that the company conducts its affairs just as a
adent ait conducts his paivata rmauerel with due regard G econ- TH E CENTRAL TRUST COM PANY OF N EW YORK,
omy and the benefit of all concerned.” Trustee of the Tontine Reserve Fund.
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FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1888.
AT A MEETING held at the Mansion House, London, on June 8,
in support of a scheme for establishing polytechnic institutes in
South London, a speech was delivered by Lord Salisbury, in which
he pointed out, that, if the law of ‘‘ the survival of the fittest” is to
hold, there must be a rapid improvement in the human race at no
‘distant day. Lord Salisbury, after passing in review the efforts
which have been made in London to meet the demand for technical
instruction, concluded as follows: ‘I have only one more word
to say, just to call your attention to another aspect of this case, and
to commend it to your efforts. We live in a time when men multi-
ply fast, but apparently the means of supporting them do not mul-
tiply as rapidly; when there is vehement competition, and occa-
sionally intervals of deep depression. And if you should look more
closely, you will find that one cause, at least, of this phenomenon
is that man, as the mere owner of muscle, is being edged out by
another and more powerful competitor. Merely as an agent of
physical force, as the possessor of the power of labor, the steam-
‘engine is a competitor which drives him easily out of the market.
And more and more the mere unskilled labor is being made un-
necessary by the development of the forces which mechanical sci-
ence has discovered. And as the world goes on, you must expect
this tendency to increase. You must expect mechanical force to
‘become more varied and more powerful and more cheap, and the
‘competition with human arms and limbs to become more hopeless.
But there is one region where the machine can never follow the
‘human being, and that is in the exercise of thought. In skill, in
‘cultivated mind, in the power to adapt the processes of thought to
the laws of nature, in all that we call ‘skilled labor’ of the highest
kind, —in that man must always have a monopoly, and need fear
no encroachment from the competition of the steam-engine. It is
to the development of his powers in that respect that the increase
in the means of subsistence, and the opening of new paths of self-
support, must be found. On all of us, in whatever position we are,
is pressing, as one of the most anxious subjects of public care, the
discoveries of methods by which the teeming millons of this country
‘shall be able to maintain themselves in a prosperous, decent, and
comfortable condition. We cannot find in their unskilled labor a
satisfaction of that want. The difficulties are enhanced by the fact
that our neighbors in other countries have been sensible of the
‘superiority which skilled education can confer, and have not been
slow to take advantage of it. If we will not be left behind in the
race, if we desire to find any satisfactory solution for the deepest and
the most inscrutable problem of our time, if we wish our complex
community and high civilization to be maintained secure from all
‘the dangers which the presence of unfed, unprosperous, untaught
millions must bring upon them, we shall do our utmost to give a
healthy and a rapid development to the secondary education of the
~working-classes.”’
In commenting on this speech, and on the report of the proceed-
ings as given in the Zzzes, Vature takes occasion to say, “ For
many a day, as our readers know, we have been urging the neces-
sity for the establishment of a proper system of technical instruc-
tion. The subject is one of such pressing importance that we have
returned to it again and again, seeking to present it in many differ-
ent aspects; and Lord Salisbury’s speech and the article in the
Times may be taken as indications that large classes of the com-
munity have at last begun to understand that the nation has no
time to lose in setting about a task which ought long ago to have
been most seriously undertaken. Even if the question had little
direct relation with economic interests, it would be for many rea-
sons desirable to secure for manual training a place among our
educational methods. Attention has hitherto been too exclusively
devoted in schools to such knowledge as may be derived from
books. It is necessary, from the strictly educational point of view,
that teachers should aim at a wider, more direct, and more prac-
tical development of the mental powers of their scholars. But
other and even more fundamental interests are also concerned.
The leading nations of the world, our rivals in industry and trade,
have already perceived the benefits to be secured from a thorough
mastery, on the part both of employers and employed, of the prin-
ciples of science as applied to agricultural and manufacturing pro-
cesses. The result is, that in many of the best markets, where our
supremacy as a trading people was formerly unquestioned, we find
ourselves at a disadvantage ; and it is certain, that, unless we place
ourselves on a level with our competitors, we shall have to pass
through some very bitter national experiences. The question is
really one of life and death for England. It is a question whether
in the near future there are or are not to be sufficient employment
and remuneration for the vast and growing masses of her popula-
tion.”
THE MODERN TENDENCY of population to drift from the country
to towns and cities is well illustrated by some figures published in
a recent number of the AZe/bourne Argus. These figures have at-
tracted considerable attention in Australia, where the tendency is
particularly marked in the case of Melbourne, Sydney, and Ade-
laide. In Melbourne the yearly increase in population has been
the greatest, the gain during the past three years varying from
nineteen thousand to twenty-two thousand; and this increase is
apparently still growing. The population of Melbourne and its
suburbs is estimated at 400,000, against 250,000 in 1878. During
the same time there has also been an increase in Sydney; and it is
believed that this city must now be nearly as large as Melbourne,
although with due pride the We/bourne Argus expresses its belief
that the latter city is destined to be the real capital of Australia.
This increase in city population has been at the expense of the
country districts. The desertion of work at the gold-fields has
tended to depopulate some sections, which population has gravi-
tated toward the large cities. In 1861 Melbourne contained one-
fourth of the population of the colony of Victoria; in 1881 this
proportion had increased to one-third, and it is now two-fifths ; and
apparently we may soon see the phenomenon of one-half the people
of the colony living in the city, and one-half outside of it. Similar
conditions practically are true of Sydney and Adelaide. Melbourne
at present contains one-seventh of the entire population of Australia.
Whether this drifting from country to city will have any effect on
the prosperity of the colony remains yet to be seen.
THE THREE AMERICAS PERMANENT EXHIBITION,
THE heartiness with which both Houses of Congress have dealt
with the projectors of the ‘Three Americas Permanent Exhibition’
that it is proposed to establish in Washington in 1892 as a part of
the celebration of the discovery of America by Columbus, insures
its success. While the subject was under consideration by the
House Committee on Commerce, Major J. W. Powell, directer of
the United States Geological Survey. was invited to address the
304
committee on the archeological importance of such an exhibition
His remarks set forth more forcibly than has been done elsewhere
the advancement to this branch of science that is likely to result
from such an exhibition, and the importance of securing the mate-
rial for it at once. The copious extracts given below will be found
interesting : —
“The value of great national fairs or expositions has been
abundantly shown by the history of such enterprises, alike in
America and in Europe. A great national fair is a stupendous ob-
ject-lesson in industrial civilization.
“The discovery of America is the event which it is designed to
celebrate, and its importance is unparalleled in the history of human
progress. At that time a continent was found peopled by savages
and barbarians, who did not occupy the land, but who were scat-
tered along the water-courses and shores in little tribes far distant
from one another. In their ignorance the beautiful earth, with all
its potential gifts for civilized man, was but a hunting-ground, a
berry-patch, a tobacco-garden, and a battle-field. But the discov-
ery of this new world gave North and South America to the plough,
the mine, the workshop, the highway, and the market. A new
world was delivered to civilized man as a theatre for new and high-
ly developed industries, and, better than all, as a theatre for new
and highly developed institutions, founded upon principles that
recognize a wider liberty and more just equality, and a fraternity
that embraces a greater scope of imperative duties, than had
previously been recognized in the history of man. This great gift
to mankind was not the result of accident through the drifting of
tempest-tossed sailors from far-off Asia to the golden strands of
the West; it was not the gift of chance through the wandering of
barbaric Norsemen to the bleak lands of the north-east coast.
Civilization discovered America by the light of science. Columbus,
a great scholar, a scientific investigator, a man whose insight pene-
trated to the great secrets of nature in the light of the science of
his time, — which was indeed but dim, — by means of one of the
grandest scientific inductions in history, accepted the conclusion
that the earth is a sphere, and with a sublime faith in scientific in-
ductions he sailed into an unknown sea, inhabited by the monsters
of mythology, and beset with the dangers of superstitious credulity,
and through this ignorance he sailed away until he discovered the
new land; and the inductions of science were verified by the ap-
pearance of continents and islands, from which great mountains
reared their tops into the heavens. There, too, great lakes were
found whose billows were destined to rock the commerce of many
peoples, and there great rivers were revealed upon whose turbulent
currents the navies of industry now ride. To celebrate the dis-
covery of America by Columbus is to celebrate the greatest event
of human history. <
“But it is not my task to speak of the value to civilization of the
proposed exposition, nor of the importance of the event which it is
designed to celebrate; nor even to show that such a celebration
would be signally appropriate to the people who are the chief bene-
ficiaries of that great scientific discovery, but simply to set forth
the extent to which the great exposition may be made interesting
and instructive to the people by making an exhibit of the archzol-
ogy of the New World.
“The débrés of forgotten culture of the world was long held to
be refuse, unsightly and loathsome; but the time has arrived when
this refuse of uncultured man is esteemed by the enlightened man
as the priceless relics of antiquity. The ruins of an ancient city
that were worthless a few decades ago, are, by the processes of
modern investigation into the history and growth of human culture,
transformed into values that nations covet; and civilized men are
everywhere throughout the world engaged in exhuming from the
ruins of ancient cities the treasures of history. Societies are or-
ganized for the collection of the material, and colleges and univer-
sities are engaged in its investigation, and the libraries of the
world are daily enriched with the volumes of this new learning.
“The events of history that are recorded by contemporaneous
writers are colored with prejudice and blurred with ignorance; but
the records that are preserved in the imperishable works of man
are not tainted with baneful inspiration and false statement, but
tell the truth, and nothing but the truth. In the past, history was
the theme for literary exploration; in the present, history is the
SCIENCE.
(Votre INo e238
theme of profound investigation ; and history has become a science
because it is founded upon archeology. It is thus that the ruins
of a temple, a tower buried in its own déérzs, an inscription on a
rock, a bronze spear, a stone knife, or a potsherd, has a value. A
mound or a monument is a volume of history, and a ruined city a
great library.
“The people who were found in America, the tribes of savages.
and barbarians, are rapidly being absorbed among the people of
civilization, Their history was written; their artisans, their war-
riors, their statesmen, and their poets are forgotten; but the ves-
tiges of their history, their archzeologic records, are widely scat-
tered. They are found buried in ruined towns and villages; they
are covered by innumerable mounds of earth that were built as.
sites for their council-houses, as places for worship, and as ceme-
teries for their dead; they are found in countless stone-walled
graves ; they are found in innumerable refuse-heaps, the débrés of
the kitchens of the savage man; they are found in every ploughed
field and on every hillside, and scattered over every mountain; and
from these sources they must be taken, if we are to reconstruct
the ancient history of America. But every dust-laden breeze
buries them deeper, every storm of sand serves to hide them more
effectually ; the furrowing of every field is an agency for their de-
struction; the working of every road, the construction of every
railway, the erection of every building, makes these relics.
rarer and more valuable; and ere they are lost I beg they
may be secured. The whole civilized world is interested in
their collection and preservation, and the people of other lands.
are gathering and carrying them away by cargoes to enrich
the museums and the great universities and splendid capi-
tals of Europe; while in America only a few quiet students have
become interested in these materials of American history, and un-
til within a few years we have been almost wholly neglectful of
things which by time are becoming more and more valuable.
“ The wealth and variety of the materials of American history
are but little appreciated. The people who inhabited the American
continent before its discovery were not all of one race, but of
many. In North America alone there were more than seventy-five
distinct stocks, having radically distinct languages and mythologies,
having independent and diverse institutions, and having diverse
and multifarious arts. At the north we have the igloo-dwellers
that live by the shores of the frozen seas; farther to the south we
have races occupying dwellings made of forest timber; other races
wove their habitations of reeds; others built their towns of the
clay of mother-earth ; and others erected their buildings of stones
quarried from the cliffs; while still others hewed themselves habi-
tations in the solid rock. Some dwelt on towering and almost in-
accessible cliffs, while other towns were erected among the crags
and cinders of extinct volcanoes. Some races were hunters, other
races were fishermen, still other races were agriculturists. Some
races worshipped the sun and moon and stars, and the gods of the
cardinal points ; other races made the mountains and the rivers
the object of their principal worship; and all worshipped strange
mythologic beasts. All of the tribes were organized into bodies
politic as bodies of kindred, but the method of organization was
multifarious. Many tongues were spoken: harsh consonantal and
guttural languages were found in the cold climate of the extreme
north and south, vocalic and musical languages were found in the
sunny lands of the middle zones. Everywhere the tribes had’
learned to use picture-writing, and to record events with pictures
of men and beasts and many conventional signs. They made
tools and implements of stone and bone and shell and horn and
wood. They made canoes and boats of bark and logs, they made
rafts and basket-boats of weeds, and they made kayaks of skins ;
and in such crafts they navigated the rivers, the lakes, and the
seas. The relics of all these mythologies, religions, institutions,
languages, and arts, must be recovered, if we are to preserve the
ancient history of America; and the work must be done soon, or
they will be lost.
“Tt is possible to make the four-hundredth anniversary of the
discovery of America an occasion to collect and preserve the an-
cient history of the country, to gather the materials of its archzol-
ogy, and to put them into one grand international museum at the
seat of government of the United States. No other enterprise in
JUNE 29, 1888.]
‘connection with such an American exposition would interest the
people more, and no other would be more instructive; and it is
proposed or suggested by the Citizens’ Committee that a great
archzologic exhibit be made, and that each nation in North, Cen-
tral, and South America be invited to contribute its quota to this
great museum. The erection of an appropriate building for this
purpose, indestructible by fire, and of sufficient magnitude for the
instalment of so great a collection, would cost about five hundred
thousand dollars. The archzologic materials to be found within
the territory of the United States are in part, but only in small
part, collected, and now in the National Museum; and the time is
all too short for the completion of this collection, yet by beginning
soon it might be well done.
“Such, in brief, is the plan which I was requested to present to
you by the Citizens’ Committee. It is no less than to collect and
put on record for future generations the priceless records that con-
stitute the history of all the native American races. If this can be
done, it will be a monument to these native peoples, erected by the
invading and conquering and civilizing nations, worthy of Aryan
power, and worthy of Aryan culture.”
WHEAT-CULTIVATION.
IN the last number of the Journal of the Royal Agricuitural So-
ciety of England, the most interesting sections are those bearing
upon wheat-cultivation. A paper upon the condition of wheat-
growing in India, by Dr. George Watt, is followed by an article by
Mr. W. E. Bear upon the Indian wheat trade, and in this connec-
tion is given an interesting account of modern improvements in
‘corn-milling machinery. These papers throw considerable light
upon the difficulties under which the English wheat-grower is
struggling, and are commented on by Mr. Wrightington in a recent
number of WVature.
Dr. Watt and Mr. Bear show the extraordinary extent of the
wheat-producing area of the Indian Empire, and the rapidity with
which this vast field is being opened up. With reference to the
latter point, men in middle life are scarcely likely to realize the fact
that in 1853 there were in all only 204 miles of railway in India,
that in 1873 there were 5,695 miles of railway, while in 1887 there
were 13,386 miles. Telegraphic communication with India was
first opened in 1865, and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869
was scarcely of less importance in developing her trade, first by
shortening the passage, and second by mitigating the risk from
wheat-weevil. Another agency has been the development of irri-
gation-works. We read that “only” 30,000,000 acres have up to
date been artificially irrigated; but the appropriateness of the
qualifying adverb is rendered evident when it is employed in con-
trast with the total area of 200,000,000 acres of cultivated ground,
and the vast tract of 868,314 square miles which include British
India. The normal area under wheat is 26,000,000 acres, and the
degree to which this area is likely to be increased deperids entirely
upon demand and price. Dr. Watt informs us that the Indian
cultivator is at all times ready to adapt his courses of cropping to
circumstances, and that he will increase or abandon the cultivation
of wheat, cotton, or any other crop according to its comparative
profitableness.
Dr. Watt comes to the conclusion that the Indian wheat trade
up to the present time is a perfectly natural one. ‘‘ The people are
exporting only what they specially cultivate for that purpose. The
moment better profits can be realized on another crop, they will
turn from wheat, without being in the least degree incommoded.”
If this is the case, the English farmer may well look with envy upon
his Indian brother, as he is in the unfortunate position of being
compelled to carry on wheat-growing from sheer inability to find a
substitute for it in his agricultural economy. Natural though the
course of the ryot may be from his point of view, the actual bounty
upon wheat, or what amounts to a bounty, consequent upon the
fall in value of the rupee, can scarcely be described as natural.
This great advantage to the Indian cultivator is clearly brought out
by Mr. Bear by the following considerations : First, the Indian ryot
gets as much for a quarter of his wheat now as he obtained in 1872.
He gets as many rupees, and his rupees are worth as much to him
as they were then. In 1871-72 the average exchange value of the
SCIENCE.
395
rupee was Is, 11.12d., whereas recently it has been under Is. 5d.
The price of No. 2 club wheat in Calcutta in 1872 averaged only
2rs. 3a. Ip. per maund, whereas it has for some time past been
over 2rs. 10a. Taking 16rs. per quarter (6 maunds) as the price
for both periods, then reckoning the exchange value of the rupee
for both periods, it is clear that the exchange value of 16rs. in 1872
was equal to 30s. 8d. per quarter, whereas the exchange value of
the same sum in 1888 is only 22s. 8d. The fact is that the Indian
ryot gets as much for a quarter of wheat now as he did in 1872, in
spite of the fall in prices. He gets as many rupees, and his rupees
are worth as much to him. This seems to settle the question as
to the encouragement given to the ryot as a competitor in wheat-
growing with the English farmer. Another point, in all respects
discouraging to the cultivation of wheat in England, is found in the
complete revolution during the last ten years in corn-milling
machinery described by Mr. W. Proctor Baker of Bristol. There
has been, in fact, not a mere substitution of one machine for an-
other, or of one series of machines for another, but there has been
a change of the principle and mode of procedure. The old system
of ‘low grinding’ by mill-stones, so well calculated for producing
flour from soft, tender wheats, such as are produced in England,
has been entirely superseded by the Hungarian and American
‘gradual reduction’ process by ‘roller mills.’ Not only does this
system require the wheat to be dry, hard, and brittle, so as tosecure
the requisite cracking and gradual reduction, but any thing in the
form of a soft or moist wheat is most injurious to the machinery
and the products. It rolls into a paste, steam is generated, and the
flour works into balls, becomes attached to the rollers, turns sour,
and, in fact, throws the entire process out of gear. “It is because
of these troubles that owners of mills on a large scale will not em-
ploy native wheats in damp seasons. No concession of price is
sufficient inducement to them to risk the disorganization of the
mill, and probable loss of reputation, by turning out inferior or ir-
regular flour.” There are, however, two modes in which these
wheats may be used, —first, by submitting them to an artificial
drying process ; and, second, by mixing them with some descrip-
tion of very brittle wheat, and allowing the mixture to lie for some
weeks, until the brittle wheat absorbs some of the moisture of the
native wheat, to the mutual advantage of both.
THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY.
THE new laboratory is at Wood’s Holl, Mass. A convenient
site has been secured close to the shore and to the laboratories of
the United States Fish Commission. The laboratory building con-
sists of two stories; the lower story for the use of students receiv-
ing instruction, the upper story exclusively for investigators. The
laboratory will have boats, dredges, and other collecting apparatus ;
it will also be supplied with running sea-water, with alcohol and
other re-agents, glassware, microtomes, aquaria, etc., a limited
number of microscopes for students’ use, and a small reference
library.
Dr. C. O. Whitman, the distinguished embryologist, has accepted
the directorship; and Mr. B. H. Van Vleck, who has had greater
experience than any one else in this country in the management of
summer seaside biological schools, has been appointed instructor.
Under these very competent officers, the laboratory will attract
probably more persons than can find accommodation ; nevertheless
it remains a matter of regret that the announcement of the opening
of the laboratory has been so much delayed, owing, we under-
stand, to some unavoidable difficulties in completing the prelimi-
nary arrangements.
The laboratory for students will be opened on Tuesday, July
17, at 9 A.M., for a systematic course of six weeks in zodlogy. By
permission of the director, students may continue their work until
Sept. 20 without additional payment. Microscopes, glass-ware,
etc., will be supplied without extra charge except for breakage.
Hand lenses, dissecting instruments, drawing materials, etc., may
be bought at cost in the laboratory. It is desired that students
owning microscopes should bring them.
The fee for this course is twenty-five dollars.
students will be limited to twenty-five.
The laboratory for investigators will be opened on July to, and
The number of
306
will be closed on Sept. 22. It will be equipped as fully as the
means permit. Microscopes will not be provided, but it is believed
that investigators will find most of their indispensable wants satis-
fied. The fee for an investigator's table will be fifty dollars for the
present season.
Rooms accommodating two persons may be obtained near the
laboratory at prices varying from three to four dollars a week, and
board from four and a half to seven dollars. Applications for
places in the laboratory should be made immediately to the secre-
tary of the Marine Biological Laboratory, Nahant, Mass.
Wood’s Holl, owing to the richness of the marine life in the
neighboring waters, offers exceptional advantages. It is situated
on the north shore of Vineyard Sound, at the entrance to Buzzard’s
Bay, and may be reached by the Old Colony Railroad (two hours
and a half from Boston), or by rail and boat from Fall River and
New Bedford.
The new laboratory is intended to continue and extend the work
of the laboratory at Annisquam, carried on for six years by the
Woman's Education Association, with the co-operation of the Bos-
ton Society of Natural History.
SCIENTIFIC NEWS IN WASHINGTON.
A New Building in the National Museum ; more than Twelve Thou-
sand Accessions made to the Museum since 1882, and nearly Seven
and One-Half Million New Entries made in its Catalogues ; Hun-
dreds of Thousands of Interesting Specimens yet unpacked ; Ex-
hibits for which there is not even Storage-Room.— How the
Cholera was spread in Japan in 1886. — The Proper Treatment of
Inebriety as a Disease. — More about the Proposed Vacuum Air-
Ship.
The Proposed New Building for the National Museum.
THE Senate Committee on the Library has reported favorably a
bill to provide for the erection of an additional fire-proof building
for the use of the National Museum. The appropriation made
for this purpose is $500,000, and the new building is to cover an
area of 300 feet square, and to consist of two stories and basement.
The site of the building is to be to the west of the Smithsonian In-
stitution, flanking it on that side as the present building does upon
the east. The present building contains about 80,000 square feet
of floor-space available for exhibition and storage. The building
proposed will contain about 220,000 square feet. The amount of
room for offices and laboratories will be about the same in each.
The net area in the new building available for exhibitions, storage,
and office-rooms, as estimated, will be between five and six acres.
The cost of the present National Museum building was $315,400,
and that cost was less than that of any similar building in exist-
ence in this country. The proposed structure can now be erected
at proportionately smaller cost, responsible builders having offered
to build it for $473,000. Plans of the interior and elevations of the
proposed new building were submitted with the report of the com-
mittee.
To show the necessity of providing at once more extensive ac-
commodations for the National Museum, the following interesting
extracts from a letter written to the committee by Prof. S. P. Lang-
ley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, June 7, are given : —
“Since the erection of the present museum building there have
been more than 12,000 accessions to the collections, chiefly by gifts.
From the year 1859 to 1880 the accessions numbered 8,475. It is
thus evident that within the last eight years the number of acces-
sions has been half as large again as during the previous twenty-
one.
“Many of the more recent accessions are of very great extent, as,
for instance, the bequest of the late Isaac Lea of Philadelphia,
which contains 20,000 specimens of shells, besides minerals and
other objects ; the Jeffries collection of fossil and recent shells of
Europe, including 40,000 specimens; the Stearns collection of
mollusks, numbering 100,000 specimens; the Riley collection of in-
sects, containing 150,000 specimens; the Catlin collection of In-
dian paintings, about 500 in number; the collection of the Ameri-
can Institute of Mining Engineers, for the transportation of which
to Washington several freight-cars were required.
SCIENCE.
[Vot. XI. No, 282
“ There are also the extensive collections obtained at the Fisher-
ies Exhibitions at Berlin and London and at the close of the New
Orleans Cotton Centennial; the Shepard collection of meteorites ;
the Wilson collection of archzeological objects (more than 12,000
specimens) ; the Lorillard collection of Central American antiqui-
ties ; and very many others nearly as extensive. In addition to
these are the annual accretions from the work of the United States
Fish Commission, the United States Geological Survey, and the
Bureau of Ethnology, as well as the contributions from several ex-
peditions of the government, from army and navy officers, and
from other government officials. These are very extensive, and are
yearly increasing in bulk and value.
“In the Armory Building are stored many hundreds of boxes of
valuable material which we have not room to unpack, and the
great vaults under the Smithsonian building and many of the attic
and tower rooms are similarly occupied.
“ For several important departments of the museum no exhibi-
tion space whatever is available, and no portion of the collection
can be publicly displayed. Indeed, the growth of many of the de-
partments is in large measure prevented by the fact that we have
no room for additional exhibition-cases, or even for storage. Many
valuable collections elsewhere than in Washington are at the ser-
vice of the museum, but we have no space for their reception.
‘At the close of the last fiscal year (June 30, 1887) a very care-
ful estimate showed that the collections were sixteen times as great
in number of specimens as in the year 1882.
“The museum is growing, as it is fitting that the national
museum of a great country should grow; and it is not only neces-
sary to care for what is already here, but to provide for the recep-
tion and display of what is certain to be placed in our hands within
the next few years.
“ The present museum building is not more than large enough
for the ethnological and technological material already available.
The proposed new building will afford accommodation for the
natural-history collections, which are at present very inadequately
housed. For instance, the amount of space assigned to the col-
lection of mammals is about 6,500 feet. At least double that
amount of space will be needed to accommodate the material now
on hand as soon as the taxidermists of the museum shall have been
able to prepare it for exhibition, it being our desire to have mounted
groups, similar to the buffalo family recently finished, in order to
preserve for future generations representations of the large quad-
rupeds native to this continent, which are on the verge of extinc-
tion.
“The collection of birds, which, so far as North America is con-
cerned, is the finest in the world, is very inadequately shown, and
requires double the case-room now available.
“ The collection of mollusks, which is one of the most complete
in the world, and contains more than 450,000 specimens, is at pres-
ent almost entirely unprovided for.
“ The collection of insects, which, though smaller, is, so far as
North America is concerned, equally perfect, is also practically
without any exhibition space. And so I might continue.
“Tt should be borne in mind that under the roofs of the Smith-
sonian and new museum buildings are grouped together collections
which in London, Paris, or any other of the European capitals, are
provided for in a group of museums, for the accommodation of
which a much larger number of equally commodious buildings is’
found needful.”
Causes of the Cholera Epidemic in Japan in 1886.
The Marine Hospital Abstract of Sanitary Reports for last Sat-
urday contains extracts from a Japanese official publication on the
cholera in that country in 1886. It spread over the whole empire,
there being 155,574 cases, among which 110,086 were fatal. There
were only seventeen days in the whole year in which no cases were
reported. The following paragraphs from this report are interest-
ing, because they show, what has been so often shown before,
the effect of bad sanitary conditions upon the spread of an epi-
demic :—
“ As to the cause of its outbreak and propagation, accurate evi-
dence is wanting ; it is an undeniable fact, however, that it sprang
and was propagated from the widely spread germs of the disease
JUNE 209, 1888. ]
which had lain dormant in Osaka the preceding year, there being
no trace of a fresh introduction. Osaka, in the autumn of the pre-
ceding year, had been invaded by the disease from Nagasaki; but
after some thirty days of prevalence the epidemic gradually declined
with the approach of the colder season, though it did not then en-
tirely disappear. One or two cases kept occurring continually over
into the next year, until, on the 2d of January, there were five cases
reported in the western and southern districts of the city and in the
ku of Sakai. On the 3d, five more cases were reported in the three
ku of the west, south, and north, and the ku of Sakai. From this
time forward, the number of cases gradually increased until the
approach of the warmer season, toward the end of April, when it
had spread all over the city, where it raged up to the end of Octo-
ber. During the epidemic, there were ninety-nine days in which
the daily number of cases reported was over one hundred, and four
days when there were two hundred. Indeed, it was the most se-
vere epidemic ever known in Osaka.
“ The situation of Osaka is such that it undoubtedly favors the
propagation of an epidemic ; for the water of the Yodo River, being
conducted through the city by canals in various directions, besides
furnishing a convenient roadway for transportation and water traf-
fic, also receives the contents of the drains of the city, while at the
same time it supplies the city with drinking-water.
“The wells, keeping the same level with the canals, freely com-
municate with each other, and thus the drinking-water of the city
is more or less mingled with the water of the drains. Such, then,
being the situation of Osaka, when an epidemic appears, the same
convenience for the transportation of goods furnishes an easy me-
dium for the propagation of disease. It is not strange, then, that
since the tenth year of Meiji (1877), whenever an epidemic prevails,
the city has been a centre of the epidemic. Moreover, in the pre-
ceding year there was much rain after the spring, until finally, in
June, the Yodo River overflowed its banks, inundating the streets
and houses. Hence the city was rendered very filthy, in consequence
of which the concealed germs found a favorable nidus, from which
the disease appeared with the return of the warm weather, and
finally ravaged the whole city. It is also to be borne in mind, that,
as Osaka is the commercial centre of Japan, and has free commu-
nication in every direction, it is likely to become the cradle of epi-
demics, and therefore whatever has made its appearance in various
other localities has had its origin directly or indirectly in Osaka.”
Drunkenness as a Disease.
Dr. Godding, superintendent of the Government Insane-Asylum
in Washington, has written a letter to one of the committees of
Congress, in which, while showing that it would be unwise to con-
fine inebriates with insane persons, he makes the following inter-
esting remarks : —
“Inebriety as a disease is distinct from insanity. Inebriates re-
sent being placed with the insane; nor are the insane, as a rule,
proud of them as associates. Insane from the poison of drink, as
they undoubtedly are while the liquor is in them, they now and then
get committed to hospitals for the insane, and in their detention
during convalescence they afford interesting though unprofitable
psychological studies. Dissolute in habit, and idle in life, they are
uncomfortable from the start. They are usually fault-finding and
impatient at their detention, denouncing every body and every thing
about them. When quiet and seemingly at ease in their lot, they
are studying how to smuggle in whiskey, or effect an escape. In
them moral honesty and generous impulses are sadly wanting,
and a condition of settled discontent characterizes the enforced
abstinence of their hospital life. What they need is occupation and
prolonged treatment in an industrial home, where they can be kept
at work at enforced labor under the supervision of a judicious phy-
sician. Asa rule, confinement in idleness does them little or no
good.”
The Vacuum Air-Ship again.
The House Committee on Ventilation and Acoustics recommends
the passage of the bill, referred to in Sczence recently, making an
appropriation to build a vacuum air-ship. The conditions of the
grant of seventy-five thousand dollars are, that a like sum shall al-
ready have been spent upon the construction of the air-ship, and
that the secretary of the navy, after an investigation, with the aid
SCIENCE:
307
of a board of engineers, into the plan of the construction of ine
proposed air-ship, and into the principle upon which it is proposed
practically to operate it, shall be satisfied that there is reason to
believe the air-ship will prove a success in attaining the ends for
which it was designed. The last payment is to be made after a
successful trial trip has been made. Dr. A. de Bausset, the inven-
tor of this vacuum air-ship, proposes to make it in the form of a
tube, air-tight, and cone-shaped at the ends, of steel of sufficient
strength to withstand the pressuré-of the circumambient air when
a vacuum has been produced by pumping all the inside air out of
the ship. - He says of his plan, ‘‘ Steel 4; of an inch in thickness
has been tested, and has been proven capable of sustaining a press-
ure double that of the atmosphere. A cylinder 46 yards in diam-
eter, with a total length of 218 yards, if made of this steel, will
weigh 260,680 pounds: the volume of air contained in it weighs
719,709 pounds, giving an ascensional force of 459,029 pounds if
the vacuum were complete.” He relies upon an electric motor and
a compound exhaust-screw to propel and guide the vessel when
afloat.
Mr. George W. Melville, chief of the Bureau of Steam-Engineer-
ing, of the Navy Department, has written to Dr. de Bausset as fol-
lows: “I have the honor to inform you that I have looked over
many of your computations, and find them correct, and also that
the principle and theory of your aeroplane are in the main correct ;
but I have not sufficient time to properly study the details of con-
struction of the vessel, which would be necessary in order to pass
judgment upon it.”
ELECTRICAL SCIENCE.
Tests of the Tudor Accumulator.
PROFESSOR KOHLRAUSCH has carried out some experiments on
the Tudor accumulator which are not uninteresting. The follow-
ing is part of the data obtained : —
Wieightrotsplatespe nicer eeieeeerecisccreteiiticciiciss 29.3 lbs.
Surface of four positive plates
WOWINS GFE cssosccocnsos8cc50000 scoadooso 6 pts.
Specific gravity, charged. 1.147
NormalichargebrateWaatrtc-teleseleiecteetelserten tetas 5 ampéres
INormalidischarg eprate scien trl matty tterseiistel= og CHB Gu
Internal resistance, charged........ ....... .-- 015 ohms
® of discharged... ........... on
(Capacitysperjpound bettelsete sr ietisertsee eee pielsetelettetet 1.6 ampére-hours
The two cells that were tested had been in continuous use from
November, 1881, to December, 1887. During the tests they were
charged and discharged thirty-four times, and between charge and
discharge a period of fifteen hours was allowed to elapse. Six ex-
periments showed a total capacity of 47 ampére-hours, an effi-
ciency of 82.4 per cent for energy, with a drop of 12.6 per cent in
electro-motive force. After this several tests of an abnormal char-
acter were made. The cells were charged, and then left alone for
various periods of time. There was aloss of about 7 ampére-hours
at first, but after this there was no further ioss in a week. When
charged with a current of 8 amperes, and discharged at 10 am-
péres, the total efficiency was 64.7 per cent. When discharged
through a constant resistance, with a current beginning at 50 am-
péres, they gave 23.5 ampére-hours and 40.5 watt-hours ; the cur-
rent falling from 50 ampéres at the start to 40 ampéres at the close,
and the electro-motive force from 1.8 volts to 1.3 volts. They were
then recharged, and discharged with 90 ampéres at the commence-
ment and 62 amperes at the end. After this enormous strain, the
cells, when recharged, gave their normal discharge just as at first.
Lastly, they were run down for four days, starting at I ampere,
until the electro-motive force had fallen to 0.2 volts, and the specific
gravity of the acid to 1.1, The cells were then recharged, and on
discharge gave 46.8 ampére-hours, with a total efficiency of 80 per
cent. The tests show a length of life of the cell, and a power of
resisting abnormal discharge and discharge rates, that isin advance
of any thing yet recorded. The storage capacity is, however, low
as compared with more recent cells. As, however, it is in length
of life and the allowing of heavy discharge rate that the ordinary
battery is mainly deficient, these experiments encourage us to be-
lieve that in a few more years storage-batteries will have reached
the point where their application to traction in cities will be almost
308
universal, and where they will make the distribution of electricity
for lighting on a large scale better able to compete in price with
gas.
THE MAGNETIZATION OF WATCHES.— With the rapid intro-
duction of dynamo-electric machines and electric motors, there has
arisen an inconvenience that is not only felt by those who work in
electric-lighting stations, but which is likely to affect the public
generally. Steel is usually used in the quick-moving parts of
watches ; and when this, for any reason, gets in a strong magnetic
field, it becomes magnetized, greatly changing the rate of the watch,
and making it irregular. ‘ It is possible to demagnetize a watch that
is affected in this way; but it is a troublesome process, and is not
a permanent safeguard. To avoid this trouble, non-magnetic bal-
ances are being rapidly introduced ; and, although those made at
present are more costly than steel, yet they add but little to the
total cost of the watch, and make it reliable under all conditions.
Probably the first to make an alloy that would possess the proper-
ties of hardness and elasticity without being magnetic, was Pail-
lard. He has described several alloys that may be used; and
watches made with balance-wheels and hair springs of these alloys
have stood the most severe tests, with success. The most impor-
tant component in the alloys is palladium. The other components
are copper and iron, for one of the alloys ; viz. : —
Palladium
Copper
TROD coda c000 oodHa0000 DBODaD OobabdGbOODUSSbODDE000 00000000
Another alloy is, —
These alloys, especially the latter, are almost free from magnetic
properties. Balances that are to be compensated for temperature
are either made of two segments of alloys of different composi-
tions, having different rates of expansion; or the segments are one
of alloy, the other of silver. Since attention has been called to
Paillard’s methods, quite a number of manufacturers in this country
and England have experimented on the subject, and are now mak-
ing non-magnetic watches ; and it is probable that at an early day
the majority of the watches sold will be made to resist the action
of magnetic fields.
CONDUCTIVITY OF A VACUUM.— M. Foeppl has experimented
on the conductivity of a vacuum by an ingenious method. He
made an induction-coil whose secondary circuit consisted of a
glass tube 7 millimetres external diameter, 4.2 millimetres internal
diameter. The ends of this coil were connected to a second coil
so arranged as to form a galvanometer, within which was a magnet
suspended by a cocoon-fibre. The glass tube forming the secon-
dary circuit was coiled in two layers of 18 turns: the primary coil
was 24 centimetres long, and was composed of twelve layers of
seventy-two turns of wire. With a current of 22 ampéres in the
primary, making and breaking the circuit, M. Foeppl could not dis-
cover any deflection of the needle when there was a vacuum in the
secondary tube, even when the degree of rarefaction was changed
through a somewhat wide range. He calculates from his experi-
ments that the resistance of such vacuums as he used could not be
less than 3 x 10° times that of pure copper. This experiment bears
directly on the question as to whether a perfect vacuum would be
a perfect conductor or a perfect insulator, since the effect of the
electrodes used to introduce the current into vacuum tubes is
avoided. While it has, to within a short time, been admitted that
a tube in which there is a very perfect vacuum will not admit the
passage of electricity, it has been held by some that the result is
due to an enormous resistance at the surface of the electrodes, not
in the vacuum itself. This experiment disproves this view; at
least, for the degrees of rarefaction employed. The wonderful in-
fluence of light on electric discharges that is being now investigated
by so many experimenters would possibly have influenced the results
of M. Foeppl’s experiments, if they had been tried in the presence
of some intense source of light.
SCIENCE.
[Vor. XI. No. 282
WINDMILLS FOR ELECTRIC-LIGHTING.— Some time ago the pos-
sibilities of windmills for domestic electric-lighting were mentioned
in this journal, and lately the experiment has been practically tried.
Professor Blyth read before the Glasgow Philosophical Society a paper
on the subject, in which he describes an experiment which he made
last summer, — the lighting of a cottage in which he spent his va-
cation by a dynamo driven by a windmill, and charging a storage-
battery. The windmill used was an old-fashioned type, with four
arms at right angles to each other, each of them thirteen feet long.
There was no especial regulating-device. The dynamo was belted
directly to the fly-wheel of the mill, and charged twelve cells of
storage-battery which supplied the incandescent lamps in the cot-
tage. Professor Blyth had never used more than ten lamps at
once, but he could have used more. With a good breeze, enough
electricity could be stored in half a day to supply light for four
evenings of three or four hours each. The lamps used were of 8-
candle power. When charging, the current passed through a cut-
out that would disconnect them from the dynamo when it ran be-
low a certain speed : so the windmill could be allowed to run all the
time, charging the battery when the wind happened to be strong
enough. The current had been used to run a light turning-lathe,
and Professor Blyth had begun to make a light carriage to be run
by the stored electricity. The paper opens to us a field for inge-
nuity, comfort, and amusement in our homes. Windmills much
superior to that described can be readily purchased, a small dyna-
mo can be bought or built at little cost, and storage-batteries can
be purchased or made. With them we could light our house eco-
nomically ; our light would be better, cooler, and healthier than gas
or coal-oil lamps ; while the current could be utilized for running
fans, sewing-machines, etc. Indeed, to theaverage American, with
some spare time and some small ingenuity, the amusement and in-
struction of such a plant would more than pay for its expense.
HEALTH MATTERS.
Cremation of Garbage.
THE important subject of garbage-cremation, and the recent
advances made in this method of disposing of this waste material,
are admirably summed up in the following extract from the Samz-
tary News :—
An indorsement of the method of disposing of kitchen waste,
recently inaugurated in Chicago, was pronounced before the sec-
tion on State medicine at the Cincinnati meeting of the American
Medical Association, Tuesday, May 8, by Dr. J. Berrien Lindsley
of Nashville, Tenn. Dr. Lindsley’s paper was an exhaustive 7é-
sumé of the present status of garbage-cremation. He gave two or
three examples showing the great quantity and variety of polluting
material occurring without pause in the limits of a city.
Baltimore, August, 1887, estimated by police census, had a popu-
lation of 437,155. The amount of night-soil delivered at the dumps
for the year ending Dec. 31, 1887, was 51,107 loads, or 10,221,400
gallons. Probably more than half the inhabitants use water-
closets which carry off an equal amount.
The dead animals, etc., removed during the same year, were : —
shotalinumberlofideadiauimalsse earliest eee eines 25,249
“ “ “
oe w WYP itd le aoadsandoaNdobOBOSODOUeOA adéscecoce 239574
cs ‘“* cart-loads of dead fish, vegetable and other offal re-
moy.edifrompyarlous|GOCkS talecaeleiecldee eee eee eee 1,067
6G ‘pounds of decayed meat condemned................- 1,495
66 Beeclozens okeresicondemmnediysntenisleciis mieeraiseaemeeise 607
Richmond, population 100,000, The report of contractor for re-
moval of garbage or kitchen refuse, year 1887, shows total number
of loads carried off 2,680, equal to 72,200 bushels.
Memphis, population 62,335. Number of loads of garbage re-
moved in 1887 was 29,120.
These examples were selected at random. To keep the city
clean is the principal work of municipal governments, and requires
more expenditure of money than all other objects combined, ex-
cepting schools and police.
The city filth naturally falls into four main subdivisions, — street-
sweepings, night-soil, dead animals, and garbage. The latter
alone concerns us at present. The definition of garbage is refuse
JUNE 29, 1888.]
animal and vegetable matter from the kitchen. Every household
is a workshop for garbage. In the country and small towns many
a family is poisoned by the careless accumulation of the same near
the well or sleeping-apartment. In small towns it is mostly got rid
of by feeding to swine and cows; in larger communities, by carting
off and polluting harbors or rivers.
In the second report of the State Board of Health of Maine, 1887,
the secretary, Dr. A. G. Young, says, ‘Of the several methods
which have hitherto been in use (for removing garbage), it may be
said that none of them are free from serious objections. If the
garbage is carried any considerable distance into the country, its
transportation is attended with considerable cost. If buried, it
still often remains a nuisance by contaminating the air or polluting
the water in the neighborhood. If utilized in part as food for
swine or cows, there is sometimes inflicted upon the community
which sends it forth a retributive penalty in the shape of an un-
wholesome milk and meat supply.
“Tn the case of a seaboard town, if it is sent seaward, the gar-
bage may depart from the place of its origin never to return, but in
large part it is strewn along other coasts.
“The great desideratum has seemed to be some method which
would not require a costly transportation of the garbage, or neces-
sitate the defilement of our seashores, but which would radically
and ultimately destroy it near the place where it is produced.
“Within the last few years, a new method of disposing of gar-
bage has been written about and talked about, and to a consider-
able extent put into operation and practically tested. It is the
method of destroying or cremating garbage by means of furnaces
specially constructed for that purpose. Where these garbage-fur-
naces have been put into use, there is pretty uniform consensus of
testimony as to their success. When rightly built, they have done
their work satisfactorily, and generally at considerably less expense
than had hitherto been incurred in disposing of the garbage other-
wise. But little or no cost is incurred for fuel to run the furnace,
as the garbage is dried more or less before it is burned, and is
made to consume itself. The cost of labor in attending the furnace
is not great, and generally there are no unpleasant odors given off
in the process of burning.
“This method has not been much used in this country, but in
Europe, and particularly in England, it has been extensively em-
ployed. Dr. O. A. Horr, amember of this board, who has lately
returned from Europe, made special inquiry in regard to garbage-
cremation in England, and all he could learn convinced him that
this system is a success in that country. The garbage-furnaces in
many of their towns have been in operation many years, and, in
conversation with the health-officer of the city of London, he
learned that there are now forty-five of the English towns which
make use of this garbage-destruction.
“In this country, so far as I know, the experiment of destroying
garbage by means of a furnace constructed specially for that pur-
pose was first tried on Governor’s Island, New York harbor. A
description of this garbage-cremator was given in the Savztary
Engineer of Aug. 13, 1885, by Lieutenant Reilly, at this time act-
ing assistant quartermaster, U.S. A., at that post.” This descrip-
tion is reproduced in the report above quoted.
In the twelfth volume of ‘ Public Health,’ containing the reports
and papers presented to the American Public Health Association,
at the Toronto meeting, October, 1886, may be found a paper by
Dr. George Baird of Wheeling, giving an account not only of the
destruction of garbage, but also of night-soil, by means of a furnace
contrived by M. V. Smith, M.E., Bissell’s Block, Pittsburgh, Penn.
Dr. Baird is brief, and has “ only tried to furnish proof of its capa-
city to solve a long-tried problem in the government of our cities
and large towns.”
The city authorities of Wheeling were stimulated to action by
those of Bellaire, O., on the opposite side of the river, but in close
proximity. The dumping of night-soil and garbage from Wheeling
into the Ohio River had become an intolerable nuisance to the in-
habitants of Bellaire living just below. No alternative remained
but to abate the nuisance. A similar alternative will soon be
forced upon many of our riparian cities and towns. Law will de-
cide that rivers do not belong to those who happen to dwell near
the source, but equally to all below, and that the upper few have
SCH NG
309
no right to deposit their filth in floating columns upon the lower
many.
In the ‘ Report on the Sanitary State of Montreal for the Year
1886,’ will be found an interesting narrative in this connection,
giving instructive details as to cost, showing the extent of the work
to be done and the complete success of the refuse-crematories, and
also of the night-soil crematories. It thus appears that Wheeling
and Montreal are the pioneer cities in arousing public attention to
the cremation of garbage and night-soil.
Dr. Lindsley then sketches the later developments in the new
method of destruction and sanitation by fire.
“Other cities,” he says, “are taking hold of the experiment with
much enthusiasm. Zhe Sanctary News of Nov. 19, 1887, states
that at Des Moines, Io., a small Engle furnace is in experimental
use, and is working very satisfactorily. At Pittsburgh a Rider fur-
nace had just commenced its service. In Chicago a Mann furnace
was being constructed.
“In the same valuable journal, March 17, 1888, may be found a
full description of the Chicago garbage-crematory, from which a
duplicate of the plant could be built if desired.
“On April 14 it reports that the said crematory is doing good
service in disposing of about fifty tons of material a day. The
Sanitary News of March to, 1888, reports the success of the dis-
posal of garbage by cremation at Milwaukee.
“ All who are concerned in this important subject will look for-
ward with great interest to a paper on cremation, to be read at the
Milwaukee meeting of the American Public Health Association in
November next by Oscar C. De Wolf, M.D., the eminent health-
commissioner of Chicago.
“We have seen how very recent is the resort to cremation for
getting rid of garbage and other refuse in America, and it may with
truth be claimed that Mr. J. M. Keating of Memphis, familiar with
epidemics, first set this ball in motion. At the Indianapolis meet-
ing of the American Public Health Association, October, 1882, he
presented a paper on ‘ The Cremation of Excreta and Household
Refuse.’ He closes the paper thus: ‘ There is no real safety save
by cremation. Yankee ingenuity, once directed in this channel,
will doubtless be equal to the emergency, and provide just the
kind of cheap furnace or stove necessary for the purpose. By this
means, and this alone, can the ultimate of sanitation be realized.’
“ Already, in 1879, Mr. Keating had presented his views on this
subject through the New York Heva/d, and with the indorsement
of that influential paper. In the American Public Health Associa-
tion, however, he had a deeply interested auditory of experts, and
his views attracted much attention. He was induced by many of
its active members to prepare an elaborate paper for its meeting at
St. Louis, October, 1884, which was published under the title,
‘The Ultimate of Sanitation by Fire.’ This is probably the most
complete and thorough monograph on the subject in the English
language. It was widely circulated in the volumes of the American
Public Health Association and other channels.
“ Individually, I subscribe to the principles and practical con-
clusions maintained and explained by Mr. Keating, and feel quite
‘confident that ina few years Yankee inventive ingenuity will provide
in great perfection the apparatus necessary for daily and cheap
use.
“On this occasion I have confined myself to the cremation of
garbage, because I am convinced that it will speedily come into use
throughout America with like rapidity as has electric-lighting; and
will pave the way for a wider and more perfect application of sani-
tation by fire.”
Milk.
Dr. Parkes writes to the Brztesh Medical Fournal as follows:
“Whilst not denying that the tubercular virus may find other
means of reaching the digestive tract than through unboiled cow’s
milk, it appears to me that there are no sufficient safeguards in the
management of town dairies to warrant us in assuming that milk
from cows in an advanced stage of tuberculosis has no chance of
being mixed with the milk of other healthy cows. In every dairy
of any size there will probably be tubercular cows, some of them,
perhaps, with tubercular deposits in the udders; and, as it is the
common custom with dairymen to mix together the milk yielded by
different cows, it is not too much to assume that tubercle bacilli
310
may be widely distributed in the milk-supply of any town. It has
been said that the tuberculosis of cattle is not the same disease as
the tuberculosis of man, and that the absence of any proof of the
human variety having ever been dependent upon ingestion or inoc-
ulation of the virus of the bovine variety tends to strengthen such a
belief. To this it may be replied, that the bacilli of bovine tuber-
culosis are identical—according to all bacteriological methods
at present known — with those found in tubercular formations in
the organs of man, and that, although the disease presents ana-
tomical differences in man and cattle, these differences may be ex-
plained as being due to differences of soil in the human and bo-
vine tissues, the bacilli ingrafting themselves in those tissues which
present conditions most favorable to their growth and develop-
ment; second, absence of proof may only mean want of observa-
tion or recorded data, and cannot be held to imply that at no fu-
ture time will satisfactory evidence of the dependence of the human
disease upon a bovine source be brought to light.
“ Having regard to all those considerations, surely the time has
arrived when a radical change in the present methods of milk-
production and milk-consumption is urgently needed. In the first
place, it should be rendered illegal for cows known to be suffering
from tuberculosis to be kept in stock by dairymen and farmers for
milking purposes; and, second, in no household should unboiled
milk be consumed, more especially by children. No other animal
food is consumed by civilized nations in an uncooked state; and by
the light of our recently acquired knowledge it would appear that
there is as much, or more, danger connected with the practice of
drinking unboiled milk as of eating raw flesh.
“Exposure to the heat of boiling water for five minutes destroys
the life and action of the tubercular virus (Klein); and the same is
true of the other specific disease-poisons. By such simple means,
then, is it possiblé to guard against an ever-present source of dan-
ger, as well as to obtain protection from those possibilities of the
introduction into our bodies of the viruses of enteric-fever, scarlet-
fever, and the like, which the experience of past epidemics has
taught us to be latent possibilities in milk, with powers of develop-
ment at the most unexpected periods. If medical practitioners
generally recognized the importance of these views, and were care-
ful to enforce them upon those intrusted with the care of delicate
children of scrofulous diathesis, or with hereditary tendencies to
tubercle, a commencement would be made in the right direction,
which would gradually extend itself through all classes of society.”
ACTION OF BOILING WATER ON TYPHOID BACILLI. — Wil-
chur of St. Petersburg has found that when a volume of boiling
water equal to that of a gelatine culture of typhoid bacilli is used
on the culture, the bacilli are only partly destroyed ; and that when
the volume of water is double that of the culture, all the bacilli are
killed. Experiments on the dejecta of typhoid patients showed
that when four times the volume of water was added to the dejecta,
the bacilli were invariably destroyed.
DEATHS FROM POISON. — There were in Great Britain, in 1886,
511 deaths from poison, including cases of chronic poisoning by
lead. Of these, 327 were accidental, 178 suicidal, and only 6 hom-.
icidal. Lead heads the list of agents giving rise to accidental poi-
soning (95 cases); then follow opium and its derivatives (82
cases) ; carbolic acid (20 cases); belladonna is responsible for 9
cases ; alcohol for 7; aconite, chlorodyne, and hydrochloric acid,
each for 6; prussic acid, ammonia, and strychnine, each for 5.
Carbolic acid was selected by 42 suicides; opium, laudanum,
or morphine, by 41; oxalic acid, by 28; prussic acid, by 25;
vermin-killer, by 18 ; hydrochloric acid, by 15; strychnine, by 14;
sulphuric acid and arsenic have lost their popularity, the former
having been used only by six and the latter by five persons.
DEATH IN BLIZZARDS DUE TO ASPHYXIA.— Markham writes
to the Fournal of the American Medical Assoczation of Feb. 18,
1888, stating that there is an amount of evidence and a combina-
tion of circumstances sufficient to show that the greater number of
the several hundreds who lost their lives in the recent great bliz-
zard of the North-west perished from asphyxia, and not by freez-
ing. Many of the bodies, when found, were in the position of
grasping or clutching at their necks or throats. Indoor witnesses
SCIBINGE:
[VoL. XI. No. 282
describe the atmosphere as having an appearance of density and
darkness, similar to that stated by divers as existing when sub-
merged with their armor in deep water. Many that escaped de-
scribe their peril as being from loss of breath or suffocation.
CROTON WATER. — At a recent meeting of the Medical Society
of the County of New York, Dr. John C. Peters read a paper on
“The Water-Supply from the Croton Lake System,’ in which he
stated that the sewage created by 25,000 people, the largest con-
densed-milk factory in the world, 10,000 cows, 1,200 horses, 1,500
hogs, and 40 factories, was all being run into that body of water from
which the city of New York draws its water-supply. While in former
years the Thames water used by London contained five times as much
bacteria as Croton water, recent investigations showed that in one
cubic centimetre New York water contained 526 bacteria, against
44 contained by London water. While, of course, the greater part
of these were the common, harmless bacteria, still there was a
large proportion capable of producing disease; and he expressed
the opinion that a great deal of the scarlet-fever, diphtheria, and
other infectious diseases which prevailed in New York, might be
traceable to germs derived from the water-supply.
HaiIR-WASHES. — We learn from the Amerzcan Analyst that
recent analyses have shown, that of the preparations for bleaching
the hair to “the delicate golden shade so much admired by the
court circles of Europe, and the best society of the United States,”
to quote from a label on one of the bottles, all depend for their ac-
tion upon the decolorizing and corrosive influence of nascent oxy-
gen or nascent chlorine. The bases used in the various nostrums
for this purpose are peroxide of hydrogen, aqua regia, and bron-
zer’s acid. Peroxide of hydrogen is the mildest and most innocu-
ous of the trio named. It is a colorless liquid which destroys the
natural color of the hair, and which, if used long enough, turns it
an unnatural grayish-white. It is rather expensive, and is there-
fore used much less than the two other acids. It produces sores
upon the scalp, and gives rise to skin-complaints that resemble tet-
ter, salt-rheum, and scald-head. The two acids are equally vile.
They attack and eat the hair and skin alike. The former they
partly bleach, and partly burn to a handsome gold color ; the latter
they stain to about the same hue as does a light application of io-
dine. Besides the dermatologic troubles named, they cause mala-
dies hardly distinguishable from eczema and erythema. One curi-
ous disease that they cause is an inflammation of the cells of the
hair follicles. The cellular walls break down, and lymph, and of-
ten blood, is extravasated in appreciable quantities. All three bases
produce falling-out of the hair and premature baldness.
BOOK-REVIEWS.
The Soctal Influence of Christéanzty. By DAVID J. HILL.
ton, Silver, Burdett, & Co. $1.25.
THIS volume consists of a series of lectures delivered at the
Newton Theological Institution, and designed partly to show what
Christianity has done for society in the past, but more particularly
to indicate its attitude toward the problems of the present. The
treatment of such themes in lectures is attended with serious draw-
backs, as it tempts the speaker to be what is called eloquent rather
than thoughtful or clear; and this tendency is plainly visible in
Dr. Hill’s work.
The second chapter, on what Christianity has done for society,
is a perfect dithyramb ; and though it may have been well liked
where it was originally delivered, yet when read in a quiet hour its
turgid style and exaggerated statements produce an effect quite
different from what the author intended. He seems to think that
the higher civilization, which is well known to be of Greek origin,
is really the product of Christianity. This part of his work, in-
deed, is vitiated throughout by the fallacy known to logicians as
post hoc, ergo propter hoc, a very serious fault in the treatment
of social questions.
In considering the social and political problems of the present
day, Dr. Hill takes the same ground that other Christian teachers
do, and we cannot see that he advances any thing new. In regard
to the distribution of wealth, he admits that Christianity has no
means of solving the problem; and the only suggestion he has to
Bos-
Jet,
JUNE 29, 1888. ]
make is that employers should treat their workmen well, and give
freely in charity. It would have been far better to take the ground
that the distribution of wealth is not a religious question, and that
religious teachers, as such, have nothing todo with it. On the sub-
jects of marriage and family life, and on the duties of parents to
their children, the author has many good remarks; and here, as
well as in the chapters on wealth, he shows himself unalterably
opposed to the communistic doctrines now so widely prevalent.
The chapter on ‘Christianity and the Problems of Education’
contains an earnest and in some respects able plea for moral and
religious teaching in both public and private schools.
Dr. Hill’s book seems to us the work of an earnest Christian
man, deeply interested in the social problems of the time, but un-
fortunately lacking in the analytical and critical power which the
thorough treatment of those problems requires.
NOTES AND NEWS.
THE long-neglected graphic study of the Mexican tribes has
within the last twenty years received a new impulse by several
native and foreign scientists who published their results through
their own publishers. The governments of the single States are
also becoming aware of the fact that something should be done for
researches on the tribes within their borders. Thus, General Mar-
iano Jimenez, governor of Michoacan, is providing now for the pub-
lication, at public expense, of the Avales del Museo Michoacano at
Morelia, the capital, having previously shown his love for science
by founding the new Museo Michoacano, and providing for its
maintenance. The editorship of the Aza/es is in the hands of the
director of the museum, Dr. Nicolas Leon, well known already
through his republication of ancient books on Indians and their
languages. The first three numbers (all published in 1888) which
have come to hand contain thirty-two pages each, and the follow-
ing treatises: ‘Arithmetic among the Tarascos (Tarascan Nu-
merals) ;’ ‘Etymology of Tarascan Geographical Names ;’ ‘The
Tarascan Grammar of Father Lagunas (in the Original Text) ;’
“On the National Name ‘“‘ Tarasco;’’’ ‘The Tarascan Calendar
(after a Manuscript in the Congressional Library, Washington) ;’
“Codex Plancarte, on Tarascan Antiquities of the Fifteenth and
Sixteenth Centuries.’ The Aza/es may be ordered through George
A. Leavitt & Co., 787-789 Broadway, New York City.
— A book of a singular value for ethnography is Lieut. H. T.
Allen’s ‘Report of an Expedition to the Copper, Tanana, and
Koykuk Rivers in Alaska, 1885,’ an octavo government publication
of one hundred and seventy-two pages, and many maps and illus-
trations from photographs. The exploring force consisted of three
men, and had to proceed up the Copper River, and descend the
Tanana River valley. Its explorations covered a space of approx-
imately two hundred and forty thousand square miles and seven-
teen degrees of latitude, the area of which was almost entirely un-
known up to the present time. The narrative of the exploring
party is of picturesque and varied interest, and in every way is highly
instructive for future travellers through these lonesome tracts.
The observations made on the characters of the savages show that
the former often partake of the burlesque. Among the tribes met
with, we mention the Midnooskies, Mahlemuts, Atnatanas, Tanana-
tanas, Ingaliks or Kaiyu-Khotanas, Unakho-tanas, Mnakho-tanas,
Nabesna-tanas, etc. The tribes ending in -¢¢za (‘men’) are all of
the Tinné stock, while those in -vzzw¢ are Innuit or Eskimo. The
appendix contains zoological, geological, mineralogical, and meteor-
ological observations of value.
— Nature attributes to the Vienna correspondent of the Zz7zes
the announcement, that, in pursuance of a resolution passed at a
recent meeting, the Vienna geologists will invite the International
Geologists’ Congress, which will assemble in London in September,
to hold its next meeting in Vienna.
— Ata recent meeting of the Victoria Royal Society, according
to (Vature, the president (Professor Kerrot) announced that the
first meeting of the Australian Association for the Advancement of
Science would be held at Sydney, beginning Sept. 4, the second at
Melbourne, the third at Adelaide. The proposal that Victoria
SCIUBINICIE,.
211
should join in the movement was favorably received, but at that
meeting no action was taken in the matter.
— The Statistical Abstract for 1887, just issued, gives the fol-
lowing interesting figures in regard to the schools of the United
States. In 1871-72 there were in- this country 12,828,847 children
of school-age, of whom 7,479,656 were enrolled in the public
schools. These pupils were taught by 81,509 male, and 124,180:
female teachers. to whom aggregate salaries of $37,503,309 were
paid. The total expenditure for the schools that year was $70,-
891,374. In 1884-85 the school population had increased to 17,-
764,658, and the number of pupils enrolled in the public schools to:
11,464,661. The number of male teachers was 109,632, and of fe-
male 199,422, to whom salaries amounting to $73,932,c68 were
paid. The total expenditures upon the schools for the latter year
were $111,521,542.
— A very successful meeting of the Massachusetts Assembly of
the Agassiz Association was held at Boston, May 29, 30, and 31.
The sessions were held in the lecture-room of the Boston Society
of Natural History, by the courteous invitation of that organization ;
and there, after a preliminary meeting of the delegates at the
Parker House, the convention assembled at 8 o’clock Tuesday
evening for a business meeting. The business consisted almost
entirely in the election of officers, and, with scarcely an exception,
the old board were re-elected. At 9 o'clock Wednesday morn-
ing President Farrar, of the assembly, opened the exercises by an
address of welcome, to which the president of the Agassiz Associa-
tion responded. Reports of work were next given by delegates.
from the twenty-one chapters represented, and from the Boston
Assembly. These reports were of the most interesting character,
and showed not only the deepest earnestness on the part of the
chapters, but also gave evidence of much faithful work already ac-
complished by them. The convention was next addressed by Prof.
Edward S. Morse, director of the Peabody Academy of Science at
Salem, Mass. Professor Morse stated forcibly the advantages of a
thorough scientific training, and cordially commended the associa-
tion for the good work it has accomplished, pointing out various.
lines in which it may hereafter work to increased advantage. Prof.
Alpheus Hyatt, curator of the Boston Society of Natural History,
followed in a most helpful address, in which, after heartily second-
ing Professor Morse’s suggestions, he emphasized still more strongly
the possibilities of usefulness that are in the association, and showed’
the great desirability of securing as soon as possible such an en-
dowment as may place the work of the Agassiz Association upon a
permanent basis. He then gave a clear account of the Agassiz
Museum, which the delegates were soon to visit, explaining the
principles which rule in the arrangement of its contents, and illus-
trating by diagrams and carefully selected specimens, the distri-
bution of the collections in the different rooms. Dr. Lincoln closed
the morning by an exceedingly instructive and interesting address.
on the minerals of Boston and vicinity. In the afternoon and even-
ing, parties of delegates, under the guidance of committees from the
Boston chapters, visited various places of interest. About one
hundred were present during the convention, many pleasant ac-
quaintances were formed, and all felt that a long step had been
taken toward advancing the assembly toward that position of sta-
bility to which it aspires. Perfect harmony prevailed, and the
delegates separated with the firm determination to work for the
association more diligently than ever; and this determination was.
expressed not carelessly, but with actual enthusiasm. In addition
to those mentioned above, Prof. W. O. Crosby gave a most sug-
gestive and helpful address.
— The fifth annual convention of the Association of Official Ag—
ricultural Chemists will be held at the United States Department
of Agriculture on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, Aug. 9, 10, and
11. All who are interested in the analysis of fertilizers, cattle-foods,
dairy products, alcoholic beverages, and sugar are invited to at—
tend.
— The State Board of Health of Michigan has just published its.
fourteenth annual report, for the fiscal year ending September,
1886. It contains very many valuable papers, to most of which we
have already referred in Sczence. Among the most important are
312
the following : ‘ Tyrotoxicon, its Presence in Poisonous Ice-Cream,’
by Victor C. Vaughan, M.D., Ph.D.; ‘ Analysis of Five Hundred
Deaths occurring in the Michigan Mutual Life Insurance Com-
pany,’ by Henry F. Lyster, M.D.; ‘Causation of Pneumonia,’ by
Henry B. Baker, M.D., with illustrations, diagrams, etc. ; and ‘Com-
municable Diseases in Michigan during the Year ending Dec. 31,
1886,’
—The cod and whale fisheries in the north of Norway, according
to Nature, have entirely failed this spring, and it is suggested that
the non-appearance of the former is due to the low temperature of
the sea this season. Thus the Russian naval officers stationed on
the Murman coast found in May only a surface temperature of from
T° to 2° C., and along the Norwegian coast it has been lower still.
As to the whale-fishing, only 40 animals had been captured by the
end of April, against 200 last year. It is maintained that the pres-
ent wholesale slaughter carried out by Norwegian and Russian
steamers equipped with harpoon guns will eventually extirpate
these animals, and some measure for their preservation is contem-
plated. Advices from the Arctic regions state that there was an
enormous mass of drift-ice in those waters during this spring. Two
sealers, the ‘Hekla’ and the famous ‘ Vega,’ were imprisoned for
more than a month in the ice to the north-east of Norway.
— We learn from ature that the annual meeting for the elec-
tion of fellows of the Royal Society was held at the society’s
rooms in Burlington House on Juhe 7, when the following gentle-
men were elected: Thomas Andrews, F.R.S.E.; James Thomson
Bottomley, M.A.; Charles Vernon Boys; Arthur Herbert Church,
M.A.; Prof. Alfred George Greenhill, M.A.; Lieut.-Gen. Sir Wil-
liam F. D. Jervois, R.E.; Prof. Charles Lapworth, LL.D.; Prof. T.
Jeffery Parker; Prof. John Henry Poynting, M.A.; Prof. William
Ramsay, Ph.D.; Thomas Pridgin Teale, F.R.C.S.; William Topley,
F.G.S.; Henry Trimen, M.B.; Prof. Henry Marshall Ward, M.A.;
William Henry White, M.I.C.E.
— The laying of the corner-stone of the new building of the
Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment Station took place Wednes-
day, June 27, at State College, Penn.
— The New York Mineralogical Club has arranged for excur-
sions on the Saturday afternoons of the present season. It is in-
tended that these outings shall acquaint the members personally
with the most interesting localities of the neighborhood; enable
them to secure specimens suitable for the permanent cabinet of the
club, as well as for private possession ; and enlarge the influence of
the club by associating with its regular members, in these informal
trips, any persons of suitable standing (ladies or gentlemen) who
may feel an interest therein.
— The thirty-seventh meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science will be held at Cleveland, Aug. 15-21.
The date of Aug. 22 was determined upon; but owing to the na-
tional gathering of the Knights Templars in Cleveland during that
week, and at the earnest solicitations of the local committee, the
council have changed the date to Aug. 15. A large local commit-
tee has been organized, the several sub-committees of which are
working earnestly, and, so far as depends upon the committee, a
successful meeting is assured. A special office and reception-
rooms for the association have been opened at No. 407 Superior
Street, next door to the Hollenden, where will be the hotel head-
quarters. The meetings will be held in the Central High School
building on Wilson Avenue, where also will be the offices of the
local committee and of the permanent secretary during the week of
the meeting. A special circular in relation to railroads, hotels, and
other matters, will be issued by the local committee. The members of
Section E will hold an informal meeting at the Central High School
building on Tuesday, Aug. 14, at 3 o’clock, to consider plans for
holding sessions between the annual meetings of the association.
‘The Entomological Club will meet at 9 A.M., on Wednesday, Aug.
15, at the Central High School building. The Botanical Club will
hold a meeting, as usual, on the day preceding the meeting of the
association, in the Central High School building. The Society for
the Promotion of Agricultural Science will hold its ninth annual
meeting in Cleveland, beginning on Monday evening, Aug. 13, at
the Central High School building, and continuing on Tuesday.
SCIENCE.
[Vot, XI. No. 282
— During the summer of 1887, the manager of the physical and
chemical department of James W. Queen & Co., Mr. Joseph J.
Walton, made a three-months’ tour in Europe for the purpose of
perfecting arrangements for the sale of new forms of apparatus in
this country, and also to look up any thing new and interesting
which would be of value to those interested in these and other
branches of science. One of the first places visited was the labo-
ratory of Sir William Thomson, at the University in Glasgow.
Mr. Walton also had the pleasure of examining the newly equipped
laboratory of Professor Ayrton at the City and London Guilds In-
stitute, and the Cambridge Scientific Instrument Company stock of
physiological apparatus. Another valuable result of the stay in
England was the arrangement which has been made for the fur-
nishing of practical and cheap apparatus for the use of students in
the study of physics by the new method, — that of allowing the
student to experiment for himself. A visit was paid to the works
of Siemens Brothers & Co. In Paris special attention was paid to
the physiological apparatus of Verdin. Special attention was paid,
both in Paris and Berlin, to the subject of apparatus for the study
of bacteriology. At the well-known house of Duboscq, in Paris, a
number of new optical instruments were examined and purchased.
Quite a visit was paid to the ateliers of the Société Genevoise pour
la Construction d’Instruments de Physique at Geneva. The optical
establishments in Munich were among the places visited. Stein-
heil, Merz, and others have long been known as the best makers of
prisms, lenses, etc., in Europe. Some new forms of balances were
found by Mr. Walton. One has a very ingenious new arrange-
ment for varying the sensibility. We may add there are other in-
struments of which we have not spoken, for which the firm soon
hope to have price-lists ready and to put on the market. Some of
these may prove of even greater value than many of those men-
tioned.
— Engineering gives an account of a new material bearing the
name of ‘woodite,’ which is being introduced as a protection to
ships of war, and for many other purposes. Woodite isa substance
bearing a strong resemblance to native india-rubber, but, unlike
that material, it never grows sticky, and resists the action of oils
and heat. If it be placed on the outside of a vessel, a shot may be
driven through it, and yet it will close up so completely that it is
difficult to find the speck which marks the spot where the shot
entered. Woodite is coming into use for many commercial pur-
poses, such as delivery-valves, air-pump valves, packing, wheel-
tires, and it is said to be far more efficient for these purposes than
either leather or india-rubber.
— The French General Translantic Company has furnished its
large fleet with complete apparatus for dropping oil on the waves
during bad weather. The company states that it has adopted the
use of oil after repeated trials.
— Ginn & Co. will publish in July ‘A College Algebra’ pre-
pared by Professor Wentworth. William S. Gottsberger pub-
lishes a volume of five tales of ancient Greece entitled ‘Pictures
from Hellas,’ by Peder Mariager, translated from the Danish by
Mary J. Safford. D. C. Heath & Co. will publish at once Vol-
ume II. of Dr. Bernhardt’s ‘Novelletten Bibliothek.’ The
Worthington Company will publish at once a book entitled ‘ Wil-
liam Shakspeare portrayed by Himself : a Revelation of the Poet in
the Career and Character of One of his Dramatic Heroes,’ by
Robert Waters. Waterman & Amee, Cambridge, Mass., have
in press a volume of ‘Selections illustrating Economic History
since the Seven-Years’ War,’ by Benjamin Rand. Prof. Rich-
ard T. Ely’s treatise on ‘ Taxation in American States and Cities,’
recently published by T. Y. Crowell & Co., is to be used as a text-
book in the Buffalo Law School and at Vanderbilt University.
The Historical Publishing Company, 61 Broadway, New York, will
publish at once a volume entitled ‘Camp-Fire Stories,’ by W. F.
Cody (‘Buffalo Bill’), It is not altogether about his own frontier
experiences that Mr. Cody has written, but of those of Daniel
Boone, Kit Carson, and other pathfinders. The manuscript, which
makes seven hundred printed pages, was dictated to a stenographer
during ‘Buffalo Bill’s’ English trip. ‘Methods and Aids in
teaching Geography,’ is the title of a new educational work by
Charles F. King, A.M., head master of the Dearborn School in
JUNE 29, 1888. ]
Boston, to be published by Messrs. Lee & Shepard. The same
firm has now in press a new volume of travels entitled ‘ Mexico,
Picturesque, Political, Progressive,’ the joint work of Mrs. Mary
Elizabeth Blake of Boston, and Mrs. Margaret F. Sullivan of
Chicago. Dr. Allan McLane Hamilton will contribute a paper
in the July issue of Zhe American Magazine on ‘Spiritualism and
Like Delusions,’ in which he will show that spiritualism is at best
a form of mild insanity. The Popular Sctence Monthly for
July contains the following articles: ‘Safety in House-Drainage,’
by William E. Hoyt; ‘Gourds and Bottles, by Grant Allen ;
‘Darwinism and the Christian Faith ;’ ‘The Teaching of Psychol-
ogy,’ by M. Paul Janet; ‘Customs and Arts of the Kwakiool,’ by
George M. Dawson; ‘Lines of Progress in Agriculture,’ by Dr.
Manly Miles ; ‘ Fallacies in the Trades-Unions Argument,’ by J. B-
Mann; ‘ Botany as it may be Taught,’ by Prof. Byron D. Halsted ;
‘Arctic Alaska,’ by W. L. Howard ; ‘ Manual or Industrial Train-
ing, by Prof. G. Von Taube; and a sketch of Paul Bert.
Time, under which title Z7za¢-Bz¢s will hereafter be known, as being
more nearly answerable to the present character of the paper, will
be conducted on the same lines which have.won 7zd-z¢s its suc-
cess ; the changes made with the present issue being external only,
and not affecting the methods of the paper, which remains under
the same proprietorship and editorial management.
— The Engineering and Mining Journal is authority for the
statement that the ‘record’ in rapid machine-work has again been
lowered. Heretofore the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadel-
phia have held the first place with the record of an engine built in
twenty-four hours, but the Pennsylvania Railroad Company has
now taken the palm by constructing a full-sized (110,000 pounds)
anthracite-burning locomotive at the Altoona shops in sixteen
hours fifty-five minutes. The work was commenced on the morn-
ing of the 18th of June, and in five minutes less than seventeen hours
the engine was turned out ready for use. It is to run on the New
York division of the Pennsylvania Railroad. This feat is, we be-
lieve, quite unrivalled in locomotive-building.
— Prof. Simon Newcomb, superintendent of the Nautical Al-
manac Office, is seriously ill of spinal irritability, and, on the recom-
mendation of a board of medical officers, has gone to the Chelsea
Hospital for special treatment.
— Dr. W. J. Hoffman of the Bureau of Ethnology has gone to
northern Minnesota to obtain some important historical informa-
tion which has been promised him by influential Indian chiefs who
live near the Canada line.
— Mr. Arthur P. Davis of the Geological Survey Office, and Miss
Lizzie Brown of the Nautical Almanac Office, were married on the
evening of the 21st inst. Mr. Davis isa nephew of Major J. W.
Powell, director of the Geological Survey, and Miss Brown is one
of the most accomplished mathematicians in the country. Each
had been a member of the Corcoran Scientific School of the
Columbian University, and each had just received its degree of
Bachelor of Science.
— The Signal Office has been making experiments in the court-
yard of the War Department building with a new machine for test-
ing anemometers. The device consists of several arms, each
twenty-eight feet long, on the ends of which are placed anemom-
eter-cups such as are used in the Signal Service. The arms
being revolved at a given rate of speed, the rate recorded by the
anemometer-cups is compared with the known rate, and any dif-
ferences noted. Professor Hazen, who has had charge of the ex-
periments, says that they have been satisfactory, although abso-
lutely still air has not been obtained in the War Department court-
yard. Even when there Was a dead calm outside, a very perceptible
movement of the air inside the court-yard was observed. This
phenomenon, which occurred early in the morning, was attributed
to the fact that the court-yard had become greatly heated the day
before, and the warm air was then rising and being forced out by
the cooler, denser atmosphere from the outside, that came into the
court-yard through the two carriage-ways. Similar experiments to
discover the exact relation between the movement of the wind and
the whirling of the cups were made about 1850, but in the machine
SEMBIN Gla,
Gus)
used then the arm was only four feet long, instead of twenty-eight
as in the new one. When the short arms were whirled with great
velocity, they caused a very perceptible movement of the air.
— The magnificent water-front of Staten Island is so important
a part of New York harbor, and access to it from the mainland is
so easy, that more or less definite projects for reaching it by rail-
road have been often brought forward. The Arthur Kill Bridge,
which is now practically completed, will, if it is allowed to stand,
enable the lines now entering Jersey City to reach directly the deep
water on the Staten Island front, and will greatly increase the
available capacity of the harbor for handling freight.
—In Bradstreet’s of June 23 is given the message of Dr. Miguel
Juarez Colman to the National Congress of the Argentine Repub-
lic. In this message are presented important facts in regard to the
progress of this South American Republic. Argentine Republic
has an area of 1,125,086 square miles, with a population in 1887 of
3,935,286. It has made wonderful progress in the building of rail-
ways. Of the 17 railways conceded, 13 have the guaranty of the
government. The guaranteed lines report a length of 7,961 kilo-
metres, and the unguaranteed 1,272, making 9,233 kilometres. The
contracts for the following guaranteed lines are already prepared =
Tartagal Reconquista to Formosa, Bahia Blanca to Ville Merce-
des, San Juan to Salta, Chumbreha to Tinogosta and Andalugata,.
Goya to Monte Caseros, Resistencia to Metan, and San Custobal to
Tucaman. The aggregate length of railways in operation is 6,306:
kilometres, equal to 3,918,4, miles. These roads have carried with-
in a year 7,657,406 passengers and 3,705,876 tons of freight. The
gross revenue from the yearly traffic is $23,805,722.15, against ex-
penses of $13,177,172.15, giving a net annual revenue of $10,627,—
950.14. The debt of the Republic March 31, 1888, was: internal,
$47,100,000; and external, $92,427,000. The latter is expected to
be paid off within eight years. Argentine 5-per-cents issued in.
1887 at 854 were on March 31 quoted at 97, and the 6-per-cents at 102
@ 1044. In 1886 the import and export trade aggregated $194,-
000,000. In 1887 it had increased $24,000,000, of which $9,500,000.
were imports, and $14,500,000 exports. The gain is due to the in-
creased production of cereals, hides, and frozen meats. The sup-
pression of export duties has also contributed to the increase in the
volume of exports. Import and export values in the first quarter
of 1888 show.an increase, when compared with the first quarter in
1887, of $4,000,coo. In 1884 the total revenue was $46,762,000.
The revenue for 1887 was early estimated at $50,522,000, but it
produced $58,135,000, or $13,372,000 in excess of the revenue of
1886. The budget of expenses in 1887 was $43,263,000, and $6,-~
756,000 for special laws without special resources, leaving a re-
mainder of $8,116,000. In the fourteen provinces of the Republic
are 2,080 schools, with 142,471 pupils. There are 116 schools in the
capital of the Republic, including 24 graduated, 56 elementary, 20,
for infants, and 16 for adults. In the 116 schools are 746 teachers,
including 224 male and 522 female. In the national territories there:
are at the present time 42 schools, with 64 teachers and 2,998 schol--
ars. The total immigration in 1887 was 137,000, and for the first
quarter of 1888, 40,500. The expected immigration in all of 1888:
is about 200,000, The cost of passage from Europe for 50,000 ag-
riculturists and artisans will be advanced to enable them to come
to Argentine Republic in 1888. The commissary of immigration
has gone to Europe to establish the requisite appliances to promote
immigration. Immigration, colonization, and railways are rapidly
transforming the country, and as a consequence its productive
forces are being multiplied, and the comforts of life there are in-
creased. The field of labor is enlarged, the educational work is
taking rapid strides, and internal improvements are receiving atten-
tion from the government.
— The courses in physics which were proposed for this summer
at Harvard College have been given up because of the small num-
ber of applications for them received up to June 1, which was the
date mentioned in the physics circular. On Saturday, July 7, and
on Saturday, July 14, an exposition of the apparatus and methods
which would have been used in the elementary summer course will
be given at the Jefferson Physical Laboratory, Cambridge, the
hours each day being from ro to 1 and from 3 to 5. This exposi-
314
tion will be for the benefit particularly of those who propose to
teach the elementary physics of the requirements for admission to
Harvard College. Admission will be free.
— We learn from Vature that the conferences convened by the
London Chamber of Commerce to consider the question of com-
mercial education led to the appointment of a committee for the
full discussion of the subject. This committee nominated a sub-
‘committee, among the members of which were Sir John Lubbock,
Sir Henry Roscoe, and Sir B. Samuelson. A scheme for the im-
provement of commercial education has now been drawn up by the
-sub-committee, and sent to various business-men, schoolmasters,
cand other authorities on education, with a request for practical sug-
‘gestions. The scheme, as it stands, proposes as obligatory sub-
jects for examination for a commercial certificate, (1) English ; (2)
Latin ; (3@) French; (30) German, Spanish, or Italian; (4) history
of British Isles and colonies, general and modern history, including
commercial history; (5) geography, physical, political, commercial,
and industrial ; (6) mathematics; (7) drawing. Proficiency is also
required in at least one of the following: physics, chemistry, natural
ihistory, commerce, and political economy.
‘LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
** Correspondents are requested to be as brief as possible. The writer's name is
in all cases required as proof of good faith.
Twenty copies of the number containing hts communication will be furnished
_Sfreeta any correspondent on request.
The editor will be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character of
ithe journal.
The Ancient Works of Ohio.
As investigation and explorations proceed, one ray of light after
another pierces the mystery which has so long hovered about the
ancient works of Ohio, enabling us thereby to catch glimpses of
the prehistoric times of that great State. As was stated in a for-
mer communication, the evidence obtained through the explora-
tions of the Bureau of Ethnology bearing upon the origin of the
typical works of that State leave but little if any doubt that they
were built by the ancestors of the Cherokees ; but this must be un-
derstood as applying only to the circles and squares, and other
works of this type, together with the mounds pertaining thereto, or
‘bearing indications of having been built by the authors of the en-
closures. The links of this chain have been gathered from the
‘Ohio antiquities, the mounds and works of West Virginia, East
Tennessee, and western North Carolina; in fact, the chain is not
single, but multiple, for there are several distinct lines of evidence
Jeading to the same conclusion. Some items bearing on this ques-
tion have been published in Sczezce and elsewhere, but since those
appeared additional testimony has been obtained by the bureau.
But Ohio was the home of more than one mound-building tribe:
there are good reasons for believing that we find here the work of
six or seven different peoples or tribes : —
First, The typical works by the Cherokees, before mentioned.
Second, The walls, enclosures, and other defensive works of Cuy-
ahoga County and other northern sections of the State. The key
which will help to solve the riddle of the monuments of this type is
to be found in central and western New York, the former home of
the Iroquois nations : in other words, they are attributable to some
branch of the Iroquois or Huron-Iroquois stock. It is possible,
and even probable, that the works of Cuyahoga County are attrib-
utable to the Eries; but this, if admitted, is only another proof
that this tribe pertained to the Iroquois group. The same type of
works is also found in eastern Michigan as far north as Ogeman
County.
Third and Fourth, The box-shaped stone graves. There is no
longer any good reason for doubting that the burial-cists of this
type, found in Ohio, are attributable to two tribes, — the Delawares
and Shawnees ; those of the central portion of the State, especially
of Ashland County, marking the burial-places of Delaware Indians,
and those found along the Ohio River the burial-places of Shaw-
nees. There are, however, no marks or peculiarities by which the
works of the two tribes in this State can be distinguished from
each other. As but few graves of this type are found in mounds
SCIENCE:
[Vot. XI. No. 282
in Ohio, it is more than probable that they belong to the time of
the later occupancy of this region by these tribes. Nevertheless
there are some reasons for believing that some of the works in
Hamilton County pertain to an earlier occupancy of that section by
the Shawnees; but this point cannot be satisfactorily settled until
further explorations have been made in adjoining portions of Ken-
tucky.
Fifth, Certain stone mounds, and mounds containing stone
vaults or graves of a peculiar type, which it would be difficult to
explain without the use of figures, which cannot be introduced
here. Sepulchres of this type have been found at various points in
the northern half of Kentucky, from the extreme north-east corner
of the State as far west as Union County; but in Ohio they have as
yet been discovered only in a few of the extreme southern counties.
This type of works is peculiar, and presents a problem to which
we have thus far been unable to find any clew. It is probable that
the builders belonged to a tribe which has become extinct. Unless
certain works in north-east Missouri, which bear some resemblance
to those of the type mentioned, are attributable to the same peo-
ple, no traces of them are to be found elsewhere than in the sec-
tions mentioned. Is it possible that the appellation ‘Bloody
Ground’ is an echo which has floated down the ages from prehis-
toric times? These sepulchres indicate a savage life and fierce
warfare with beasts of prey.
S¢xth, The effigy mounds, of which some two or three only are
known within the limits of Ohio. These also present a problem
difficult to solve. It is possible that some sudden freak of the med-
icine-men or medas of some one of the tribes mentioned may have
brought about the building of these strange works, but such a sup-
position is far-fetched and without any basis. It is more likely
that a straggling clan or small tribe of the Wisconsin mound-
builders, — probably belonging to the Dakotan stock, — wander-
ing toward the south-east, left these mementos of their passage.
The bird-effigies of Georgia may possibly have been built by the
same people. Such breaking-away of a clan or tribe and its wan-
dering to a distant locality is not without parallel in Indian history.
Seventh, Fortifications of that type of which Fort Ancient is an
example. Although I have introduced this type under a separate
number, I am inclined to attribute the principal works of the class
to the builders of the typical works of the State, — the Cherokees.
This is also the opinion of most of our archeologists, yet the rela~
tion between the works in some cases is not apparent. Fort An-
cient is an example of this kind. Moreover, there are some indica-
tions in this instance of the influence of the white man, especially
in the northern section of the work.
Omitting the last from the list, there remains clear and satisfac-
tory evidence that the ancient works of the State are due to at least
six different tribes. Cyrus THOMAS.
Youngsville, Penn., June 25.
Distillation of Mercury at Ordinary Temperatures.
IN the physical laboratory of the United States Geological Sur-
vey a normal barometer hangs in a window-jamb about 35 centi-
metres from the glass of the window. As the window faces east,
it has the sun until noon. The barometer-tube at and above the
upper surface is 25 millimetres in diameter, and extends 6 centi-
metres above the mean position of that meniscus. It was observed
that during the summer small globules of mercury covered the
inner wall of the tube above the column, on the side farthest from
the window. In the winter they collected upon the side nearest to
the window. An inspection showed that the radiation from the
tube was greatest toward the cool room in the summer, and toward
the window and out of doors in the winter, thus keeping the side of
greatest radiation slightly cooler than the mass of the reservoir,
and condensing upon it some of the vapor of mercury of the Tori-
celli vacuum. In this way several grams were condensed and fell
back in a single month, —a fact which seemed quite interesting
when it is remembered that the vapor-tension of mercury at even
30° C. (86° F.) is only .o6 of a millimetre. Of course, by bending
the top of the tube over and downward toward the cooler side, the
distillate could be collected and measured. W. HALLOCK.
Washington, D.C., June 2r.
June 29, 1888. |
SCENIC:
111
Bishops Potter, Stevens, and Robertson ;
Presidents Mark Hopkins, Hitchcock, and Barnard;
Profs. Parker, Draper, and Beard; and thousands of the world’s best brain workers, have used and
recommended CROSBY’S VITALIZED PHOSPHITES, for the relief of Nervous Derange-
ments, Brain Weariness, Dyspepsia, and Debility.
It is a Vital Nutrient Phosphzte, not an inert Laboratory Phosphate.
56 W.
25th St., N. ¥.
For sale by Druggists, or sent by Mail, $1.
Life Insurance.
Foremost among assessment insurance as-
sociations in this country is the Mutual Re-
serve Fund Life Association of this city, E
B. Harper, president. This company now
issues a free policy, placing no restrictions
upon residence, travel, or occupation, incon-
testable and non-forfeitable after five years,
with the privilege of a cash surrender value
or a paid-up policy after fifteen years. Its
plan of business is that of bi-monthly pay-
ments based upon the actual death losses
among its members, and its statements show
that it has paid over $4,702,000 in death-
claims, and has in the hands of the Central
Trust Company of New York, as trustee, a
cash reserve surplus of $1,546,368.49. The
Mutual Reserve has lately been critically ex-
amined by the Insurance Department of Mis-
souri, and pronounced sound and honestly
managed in every particular. — Vew Vork
Fournal of Commerce.
Calendar of Societies.
Biological Society, Washington.
June 2.—¥. H. Knowlton, Notes on the
Fossil Wood of the Yellowstone National Park ;
W. B. Alwood, Notes on the Artificial Pollena-
tion of Wheat; F. A. Lucas, Abnormalities in
the Ribs of Birds.
Engineers’ Club, Philadelphia.
June 2.— A. Marichal, Public Health of
Cities and Towns ; W. S. Sheafer, Notes on the
Coal-Deposits of Sonora, Mex.; A. W. Sheafer,
Electric Haulage in Anthracite Mines : G W.
Jones, Valve Motion; Howard Constable, The
Montague Street Electric Railway and Elevated
Terminal Station at Wall Street Ferry, New
York; L. M. Haupt, The Great Transportation
Areas of the United States.
Mineralogical Club, New Vork.
June 8. — Oxides and Carbonates of Copper.
Torrey Botanical Club, New York.
une 12.—N. L. Britton, Description of a
Collection of Plants from the Mountains of Ari-
zona, sent by Dr. E. A. Mearns, U.S.A.
American Institute of Electrical Engineers
New Vork.
June 13. — Frank J. Sprague, The Solution of
the Municipal Rapid-Transit Problem.
Society of Medical Furisprudence and State
Medicine, New York.
June 14. —J. B. Matteson, M.D., Ethics of
Opium Habitués; W. A. Purrington, The De-
sirable and the Practicable in Legislation regulat-
ing the Practice of Physic and Surgery.
American Academy of Arts and Sciences,
Boston.
June 13. — William G. Farlow, Biographical
Notice of Dr. Asa Gray.
Appalachian Mountain Club, Boston.
June 13.—F. H. Chapin, Long’s Peak, Col-
orado; Miss L. A. Putnam, The Crater of
Mount Misery, St. Kitts.
Engineers’ Club, St. Louis.
May 30.— R. E. McMath, The Water-Way
between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi
River, by Way of the Illinois River.
Publications received at Editor’s Office, May
28-June 9.
Carr, L. Missouri. A Bone of Contention. (Ameri-
can Commonwealths.) Boston, Houghton, Mifflin,
& Co. 377p. 16°.
Davis, J. R. A. A Text-Book of Biology.
phia, Blakiston. 462p. 12°. $4.
Gattoway, R. The Fundamental Principles of Chem-
istry. London and New York, Longmans, Green, &
Co. 364p. 12° Sr.7
Gow, J. A Companion to all Classics. pores and
New York, Macmillan. 378 p. 16°. $1.7
Goyen, P. A Higher Tet eats and leroy Men-
suration. London and New York, Macmillan. 360 p.
16°. $r.30.
Hayes, H. Sons and Daughters.
473 Pp. 16°. :
Jennincs, A. C. Chronological Tables. A Synchro-
nistic Arrangement of the Events of Ancient His-
Philadel-
Boston, Ticknor.
tory. London and New York, Macmillan. 123 p.
12°, $1.25.
Jones, C.C , Jr. Negro Myths from the Georgia Coast.
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.
7K St 2
Lock, J. B. Trigonometry for Beginners as far as the
Solution of Triangles. London and New York,
Macmillan 135 p. 16°. 60 cents.
Micnwi1Gan State Board of Health, Fourteenth Annual
Report of the Secretary of the, for the Year ending
Sept. 30. 1886. Lansing, State. 341p. 8°.
Miter, O. T. In Nesting Time. Boston and New
York, Houghton. Mifflin, & Co. 275 p. 16°.
Ou10, Report of the Geological Survey of. Vol. VI.
nomic Geology. Columbus, State. 831 p. 89.
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